Mandarin and Matcha Bundt Cake

From a recent Tuesdays with Dorie project, I have a small tin of matcha powder sitting on my shelf.  If you are familiar with matcha powder, you will know that it is very, very expensive.  This means that I have no intentions of letting my matcha powder gather dust on the shelf before finally having to be thrown away.

In the July 2016 edition of Taste magazine, I was pleased to spot a recipe for Mandarin and Matcha Bundt Cake - both seasonal and containing 5 teaspoons of precious matcha powder, so a match made in heaven for me.

This is the completed cake:

From the top of the post, you can see that this cake is suitably swirly inside with both green bits (from the matcha) and white bits (without matcha).

This cake was buttery and delicious, and the mandarin (zest in the cake, juice in the icing) added just the right flavour note to cut through the sweetness.

To make this cake, you will need:

340g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
250g butter
3 mandarins (juiced and zested)
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 eggs
55g almond meal
225ml buttermilk
5 teaspoons matcha powder

For the icing:

210g sifted icing sugar
grated rind and juice of mandarin (I just used leftover juice from the other 3 mandarins and left out the rind)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease a large bundt pan with oil or butter.

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder together in a bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, mandarin zest, ginger and vanilla essence until pale and creamy.  Beat in 1 egg  and 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture.  Beat in the remaining eggs, one by one, alternately with tablespoons of the flour mixture.  Beat in the almond meal, half of the remaining flour mixture, half of the buttermilk and 1 1/2 tablespoons mandarin juice.  Add the remaining flour and buttermilk and a further 1 1/2 tablespoons mandarin juice and beat until just combined.

Divide the batter into two equal portions in 2 separate bowls.  Stir the matcha through the batter in one bowl.  Spoon the coloured and white batters alternately into the bundt tin, then swirl lightly with a knife.

Bake the cake for 45 minutes or until cooked through..  Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in the tin for 15minutes before unmoulding onto a wire rack to cool completely.

 Whisk the icing sugar and mandarin juice and zest together in a bowl until smooth  and drizzle over the cooled cake.

Slice and serve.