Green cake, Blue berries
It’s time for Monthly Mingle #19 : Spring Fruit Sensations, hosted by Abby of Eat the Right Stuff and while it’s actually officially Autumn here in Australia, there are still some decent berries available in the shops. In fact, we’ve just started the major ordering for our big function at work, and for those suppliers we have been faxing instead of speaking to directly, it’s amusing to get callbacks from them because they can’t believe the amount of stuff we’re asking for. Is that really 55 litres of double cream on the order?? What the heck are you doing with 50kg of crabmeat? (And yes, we really do want 500 punnets of raspberries!)
Blueberries are my favourite berries. In the middle of Summer, when the price drops, I usually buy and eat as many as I can, preferably fresh, by the handful. Now, one last punnet remains in my fridge, and I thought I would cook with them for a change.
I was testing a recipe yesterday, for a lemon cake which I turned into a green tea (maccha) flavoured cake. Green tea is one of my favourite flavours. Jillian, an even bigger fan of the stuff, says it’s one of her favourite food groups! Initially this cake mix looked a bit dubious because it was very wet and took longer to bake than expected in the oven. However the end result, which with great impatience, I unmoulded and immediately tasted a spoonful of, surprised me by being truly delicious and moist, and, although not advertised, gluten free!
Let’s take tea, while these cakes are still warm!, I called out to B.
Oh yes, tea, marvelous idea, darleeng.
What to serve with the cakes though? ..Ah yes, a blueberry compote. Won’t take long. Should be ready by the time the tea is brewed :
Blueberry compote :
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
juice 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
125g blueberries (1 punnet)
Bring the sugar, water, lemon juice and vanilla to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil for 1 – 2 minutes until the liquid starts to look syrupy. Add the blueberries and cook for another 30 seconds – 1 minute. The colour from the berries will start to leach out into the sugar liquid, which is what you want. Pour this mixture into a dish to cool. When it has cooled down, the compote should be a nice saucey consistency. It is then ready to be served alongside a cake, pudding, or drizzled on top of vanilla ice-cream.
abby said,
March 25, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
your cake and compote looks fabulous, i must try using green tea flavouring… thanks for contributing this to the monthly mingle.
Aran said,
March 25, 2008 @ 10:03 pm
I have seen a lot of recipes using green tea lately. The cake looks really moist and with the blueberry compote… hmm… very nice…
Lorraine E said,
March 27, 2008 @ 10:39 am
I love green tea flavoured cakes-I made green tea cupcakes a while back and they were really delicate and such a pretty colour.
Wow, may I ask what kind of work you do to be ordering that much double cream, crab meat and strawberries. It sounds fabulous whatever it is! 🙂
Y said,
March 27, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
Yeah, I love the green colour too. Especially since it’s all natural 🙂
The crabmeat isn’t for me, but I needed all that cream and raspberries for a dinner and canape function we’re doing this coming Monday, for 1100 people. Monday is going to be completely nutty. I’m thinking about bringing a camera along but I probably won’t have time to take any photos.
Lorraine E said,
March 31, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
Woah 1100 people? That’s quite the crowd!
liss mayer said,
May 5, 2012 @ 6:38 am
what’s the green tea cake recipe?
Y said,
May 7, 2012 @ 11:55 am
Hi Liss,
Sorry, I wish I had kept a note of the recipe because I’ve been trying to find it again myself and haven’t been very successful!