East meets West

Once I know how to make the basic version of something I think of how I can change it up and angel food cake was no exception. I started thinking of things you could put in it to add flavor. Filled angel food cakes are popular, but that gets a bit squishy for my taste. Then the most brilliant idea hit me. Green tea! I love the flavor. It's good for you-hello antioxidants! And I keep hearing about people cooking with Matcha green tea powder. I had no idea whether it would work or not but figured it was worth a shot.

I visited my local Whole Foods Market to find Matcha. It's pretty expensive, but potent and delicious. The box I got had 10 2g packets meant for individual servings and it ran me $20. I followed the recipe like before, but stirred two packets of powder in with the sugar that gets added to the egg whites. It was just the right amount to add noticeable flavor but not be overwhelming. The meringue didn't get as fluffy as it originally did and I was worried the cake would turn out flat. But it ended up rising in the oven more than the original and turned out great. Nice and tall and fluffy and golden with a beautiful pistachio color inside.

I decided to try another experiment and frost the cake with ginger whipped cream. It was the right choice for sure! I bought the tiniest piece of fresh ginger my grocery store had which cost me 27 cents. I've never used fresh ginger before and wasn't really sure how to go about it. I peeled the ginger and grated it on a zester. It made a juicy pulp that was still pretty woody. The texture would have been gross in whipped cream so I improvised.  I dumped the tea out of a regular ol' tea bag and put the ginger pulp inside then squeezed the ginger juice into the bowl. I added probably 1 1/2 teaspoons of juice to the cream before I whipped it. It was perfect! It had the nice buttery flavor of fresh whipped cream and just a little bite from the ginger.

I served it at a friend's birthday party and people raved over it, which makes me extremely happy. The whole thing was gone in a matter of minutes. I thought the combination of the two flavors was great. The cake would also be great with a plain glaze or whipped cream. I would absolutely make this recipe again.

Tip: If you don't want to drop $20 on Matcha, an anonymous Whole Foods employee recommended that if I only needed a little for baking I should visit Starbucks and tell them I can't find it anywhere. She'd had a couple customers who were able to buy enough for a recipe from them.
Photo credit: Susan Liedke