Chocolate Green Tea Marble Cake

(Original Post Date:  March 23, 2010)

There are several food blogs that I love to read.  On one site, I found an interesting looking recipe for Chocolate Matcha Bundt Cake.

What is Matcha?  Well, it’s a very strong powdered form of green tea, traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies.  Prepared in that manner, it is rather bitter, and not the most pleasant of beverages in my experience.

Lately, it seems matcha is everywhere… including at Starbucks.  My husband’s favorite Starbucks drink these days is a Green tea latte, made with a sweetened version of matcha, milk, ice, and a sugary melon syrup.  Personally, I think the Starbucks green tea latte in that form is rather disgusting… I just can’t get over the taste of melon with my green tea.  Yuck!  But he likes it…

Anyway, trendy drinks aside, I was intrigued by this Chocolate Matcha cake, and decided to make it.  I made some revisions as I went along, and my modified version of the recipe is below.  You can find unsweetened matcha at any Japanese market.  The sweetened matcha (not real matcha, of course) can be found at most gourmet/health food stores – and I don’t think there’s really much difference in which one you use for a cake recipe.

Chocolate Green Tea Marble Cake:

• 3 c. sugar
• 1 c. unsalted butter
• 3 eggs
• 1 3/4 c. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Chocolate Mixture:

• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 c. chocolate chips

Green Tea Mixture:

• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 3 T. matcha (green tea) powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 drop green food coloring

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Grease a bundt pan and “flour” with cocoa powder.  You could use flour, but then you could end up with a white residue on the outside of your chocolate cake… which doesn’t look appetizing.  Cocoa powder will do the same job, keeping the cake from sticking, but will look much nicer in the final product.

3.  Sift the chocolate mixture (minus the chocolate chips) and the green tea mixture (minus the food coloring) together.

4.  Cream the butter and sugar.  Gradually beat in each egg, then mix in the milk and vanilla.

5.  Add half the wet mixture into the chocolate dry mixture, and half into the green tea mixture.  Gently combine, add 1 drop green food coloring to the green tea mixture, and add the chocolate chips to the chocolate mixture.  You could omit the green food coloring… but for some reason, the batter just didn’t seem green enough to me, hence the addition of 1 drop of food coloring.  I also thought that chocolate chips would add a nice touch to the other side of the equation, and in the end, I was glad I had made that decision.  More chocolate is never a bad idea!

6.  Drop 1/2 cup “blobs” of chocolate and green tea batter into the prepared bundt pan.

7.  Using a chopstick, or the blade of a butter knife, swirl through the batter several times.

8.  Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees, or until done.  Test by gently pushing down the top of the cake with a clean finger.  If it springs back, then it is done.  If it feels too wet, or doesn’t spring back, the cake needs a little more time in the oven.  The original recipe called for a longer cooking time at 325 degrees, but with my bundt pan (the typical regular sized bundt), I’ve found that 350 degrees works better for me.

9.  Cool for 5-10 minutes before inverting onto platter.