Colour Me Green xo

I am a BIG fan of greet tea desserts.  I LOVE green tea flavoured creme bulees, ice-creams, or sticky rice mochi balls....  My ultimate Gooey treat which lights up my eyes whenever I encounter them in a Japanese cafe or supermarket.  Getting your hands all sticky and messy and your lips covered in a dusting of rice flour is half the fun!  

Green tea itself can be bitter and somewhat 'blah' in taste on its own.... but when you combine that rich bitterness of the finely ground green tea powder with super sweet ingredients to balance out the flavours.... you end up with something very special and unique which leaves a deliciously subtle, bitter flavour of tea lingering in your mouth.  When I was having a blog writing freeze moment, a friend suggested I try posting a green tea dessert recipe.  Google spoilt me for choice with recipes for green tea shortbread cookies, sponge cakes, cheese cakes etc and would you believe, even recipes for carrot cakes with green tea icing?

But a coconut and green tea cake recipe caught my eye, so I got the creative juices in action again to come up with this recipe for a gorgeously rich, moist cake with a healthy spin, but it's still BURSTING with tonnes of flavour.

If you want to try something DIFFERENT, or are already a lover of Asian flavoured desserts and like a kick of bitterness and sweetness all in one mouthful, this one will be sure to please you xo 

Healthy Green Tea and Coconut Cake

Ingredients:

3 eggs

2 cups almond meal

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 cup lite coconut milk

2 1/2 level tablespoons green tea powder (matcha) (you can get it in Asian/Japanese supermarkets)

pinch of salt

3/4 cup maple syrup (or a few tablespoons less if you don't like things too sweet)

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees Celcius (347 degrees fahrenheit)

Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm spring form pan with baking paper.

In a bowl mix the almond meal, desiccated coconut, salt and green tea powder together.

In another bowl mix together the coconut milk and maple syrup and vanilla essence.  Whisk the eggs until frothy, then add into the other wet ingredients and stir in.

Fold all the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until combined.  Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 40 - 45 minutes or until the top is JUST set.  Leave to cool in the cake tin.  Cut and Serve and Enjoy!

PS: An idea I have for next time which you might like to try is to add 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts to the batter at the very end before pouring into the cake tin.  Will add a nice element of texture to each bite xo