Matcha cake is a traditional Japanese cake. I had never heard of it, and when the guys at Hope Makes It Easy asked me to try and recreate this with their cake mix, I jumped at the chance. 

Nozomi, (Japanese for Hope) the founder of Hope makes it easy, loves Matcha cake. Born and raised in Japan, when she came to England, she realised that she couldn’t get a decent Matcha cake anywhere. Even the cake mixes on the market didn’t live up to what she had grown up with. So, Nozomi has spent the last 4 months, and dozens of different combinations, perfecting the mix so that everyone gets the chance to taste a great Matcha Cake, without the expensive flight to Japan!!

Now, I love to bake. I used to bake cakes all the time. However when I moved to Nottingham I kind of forgot how to do it. I’ll admit, I had a mess up that I’ll detail below…

Ingredients

Hope Cake Mix

4 large eggs

120ml milk

200g butter

For the decoration

300ml double cream

3-5 tbsp sugar to taste

Method

This was so easy. I know Hope have changed the instructions a few times to tweak it and make it easier. 

Melt butter over hot water until soft. 

Add in green powder sachet and whisk for 1 minute. 

Add 4 eggs and milk and whisk for 1 minute. 

Add white powder sachet and mix for 2 minutes until well stirred. 

Divide in to TWO 18 or 20 cm cake tins. 

Oven cook for 23 min (18cm or 20 min (20cm) until you can pull a skewer through and it comes out clean (I forgot to do this with the second, turned it onto a cooking rack and got covered in batter) I popped it back in the oven for 5 min and it was great) 

Leave to cool and then whip double cream and sugar until it thickens. 

Pop one cake on top of the other, with a layer of cream in the middle, and then decorate! I can’t decorate a cake apparently, so maybe get someone with a steady hand to do it ?

The cake itself was so moist. I followed the recipe to the letter, and it really was simple. I like green tea but was really worried that the taste would be overpowering. This wasn’t the case and it was just a slight green tea taste that was really pleasant! From some of the pictures I had seen online I thought it would be a really vibrant green. However it was quite dark in colour so don’t be surprised if it comes out darker than expected! Also, the instructions say ‘don’t worry if it mixes very runny’. Mine didn’t, and again was a little concerned as it had a good strong consistency when I mixed, but was so soft and fluffy so I must have done something right! I used an electric whisk so that may have played a part. 

The mix is still in the testing phase but I’ll update as soon as you can buy online!