Green Tea Cupcakes

I decided to be spunky and make some green tea cupcakes. I am not a big fan of green tea itself but I absolutely  LOVE green tea ice cream!!!!! <3<3<3<3 So I thought I'd give this recipe a try. 

The site I got it from was: http://www.cookiesncandy.com/tag/recipes/

Sites pic: 

My pic:

Ingredients:Batter

•    1 cup all-purpose flour
•    1 cup cake flour
•    4 teaspoons matcha powder
•    1 teaspoon baking soda
•    1 teaspoon salt
•    1 1/4 cups white sugar
•    1 cup vegetable oil
•    3 eggs
•    1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
•    1 cup sour cream

Icing:

•    2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
•    4 teaspoons matcha powder
•    6 ounces cream cheese, softened
•    4 tablespoons butter, softened
•    1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (325 degrees F with convection). Place muffin liners in a mini muffin tin and a regular muffin tin.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, sift together all purpose flour, cake flour, matcha powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat together sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla.
4. Alternating between dry mix and sour cream, stir into the wet mixture until just combined. Cool looking batter huh?
5. Fill the cups 2/3s full with batter.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. To make frosting, sift together confectioners sugar and matcha powder. Set aside. Using a heavy duty mixer on medium speed, beat together, cream cheese, butter and vanilla for 5 minutes. Reduce to low speed and add sugar/matcha mix.
8.Frost with piping bag.

Now let me tell you the matcha powder was such a mission to find!! I finally had to go to a Chinese Herb store to purchase it and it is quite expensive. I also read on the internet that you can just purchase green tea leaves and crush them until they are a fine powder, but I decided to try and find it first. Mmmmm the match powder smells SOO goood!! It reminded me of green tea ice cream! <3<3<3

The batter of the recipe turned out quite lovely! I really did enjoy it but it isn't THAT sweet so you need the icing to be sweet to balance the recipe out. Also as you can tell the difference between the pics, they obviously added green food colouring to the batter since it is ALOT more greener than mine ( I followed the exact amounts). So if you want your cupcakes to look that green, I would suggest adding 1-2 tsps of green food colouring. 

The icing on the other hand had TOO much green tea taste for my liking, so I added some orange zest and that made it just PERFECT. If you are not a big fan of the taste, I would suggest to add the orange zest ( YOU WONT REGRET IT!! :) )

Banana Bread

I noticed that my bananas were going black and whenever that happens, you know what time it is?! BANANA BREAD MAKIN' TIME!! mmmmmmmm I absolutely LOVE banana bread especially when it is nice and moist!!!!<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

I got the recipe from this site: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Dessert/Eggs-Dairy/recipe.html?dishid=5918

Sites pic:

My pics:

Ingredients: 

• 2 or 3 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup/250 ml)
• 1/4 cup honey (60 ml)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (7 ml)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar (60 ml)
• 1 cup plain yogurt, full fat (250 ml)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (30 ml)
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (375 ml)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda (10 ml)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (2 ml)
• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
• 1 ripe banana, sliced, to bake on top of bread as a garnish (optional) 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Lightly grease a 4-inch X 8-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper.
3. In a large bowl, mash bananas. Add the honey, vanilla, sugar, yogurt and oil. Mix with a spoon or spatula to combine.
4. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and nutmeg onto parchment paper or another bowl. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the banana mixture until just combined.
5. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Line banana slices decoratively on top of the batter, if desired. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, until golden and tester comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Flip onto a wire rack and cool completely. Cut into 8 to 10 slices. Serve.

Also instead of using the yogurt, I used 3/4 butter milk and 1/4 apple sauce and I also added 1tsp of cinnamon. I think this recipe came out pretty good with the alterations, but I wonder if it would be any moister with the yogurt? Just like I'm on the search with soft Chocolate Chip cookies, I'm on the same search with finding a recipe that makes moist banana bread!!!

anyway enjoy :)