STRAWBERRY YUZU JASMINE GREEN TEA CAKE
Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons of the year. I love how the season transitions from the cold, rainy winter days, overcast skies to bright blue skies, greenery everywhere because of the fresh rains, and the blooming flowers bring a tinkling of sparkle, and uplift spirits. Cherry blossoms start sprouting in March and the surroundings look so ethereal and magical!
With spring in the air, I wanted to make a cake that is light, airy, mild and yet fresh in flavor. I knew I wanted to make a frosted cake with a pretty flower design on the top signifying the lovely spring flowers all around us.
Jasmine Green Tea
I have been crazy about jasmine green tea off late. I love it in my boba drinks that I get from time to time. Strawberry is my favorite flavor, next to mango and passion fruit. I recently bought a 1 pound bag of jasmine green tea from Amazon linked here.
My kids are not fond of the boba inside the boba drink – go figure! So I make cold fruity jasmine green tea as an after school cooler and they truly enjoy it, especially since the beginning of April was pretty hot, with a heat wave going on in the Bay Area!
The cake that I had in mind was with jasmine green tea, with flavors of Strawberry(Boba?) and Yuzu – in the form of a buttercream. My family prefers the sweet American buttercream over Swiss Meringue Buttercream, so most of my cakes have the american buttercream. I had the best time making the cake and it’s flavors.
Flours used in the Cake
I always use my trusted go to brand – Bob’s Red Mill Organic All Purpose Flour and Super Fine Almond Flour in my cakes. The all purpose flour and almond flour are both fresh and make the best baked goods. The almond flour has a fine texture, and flavor that truly makes the cake have a good grit and bite to it.
You can find Bob’s Red Mill flour to purchase here. The best part about Bob’s Red Mill is that they have an extensive variety of products, catering to all dietary needs be it Paleo, or Gluten-Free. Their Gluten-Free Oats are my favorite and I love making my breakfast every morning with their gluten free oats.
Ingredients in the Jasmine Green Tea Cake
The ingredients are as follows:
- Loose leaf jasmine green tea – You need to get a good quality brand of loose leaf tea for the best flavor in the cake.
- Whole milk – You could use oat milk or almond milk for substitution, make sure that they are not watered down plant based mylks. I steep hot whole milk with the loose leaf jasmine green tea to get a very intense potent flavor. When mixed with the batter, the flavor gets beautifully subtle, yet you can get the taste of the tea in the cake batter.
- Bob’s Red Mill Organic All Purpose Flour
- Bob’s Red Mill Super Fine Almond Flour
- Granulated Sugar – I have not tried using any other sugar in this cake recipe. If you want to experiment with brown sugar, you can. I would think it would go really well with the jasmine green tea flavor in the cake.
- Olive Oil – I do not use extra virgin olive oil in the cake, plain ol’ olive oil, to make the cake moist.
- Unsalted Butter – The high fat is required in the cake, and along with the olive oil provides the right kind of grit to the cake. It is not fall apart loose, it holds sturdy and has a good taste and texture.
- Eggs – Eggs make the cake light and moist too, along with the fat in the batter.
- Vanilla extract – I prefer using vanilla bean paste, but you could use vanilla extract too.
The cake is really simple to put together. I bake it in 2×8 inch square baking pans. But you could also use 2×8 inch round baking pans. If you find out the area of the square versus round baking pans, both 8 inch, it is about the same. That is the math geek in me ;).
What I love about square cakes is that you can cut neat slices to give away to family and friends rather than cut uneven slices with a round cake!
Make sure to ALWAYS use a scale to measure out ingredients. I have used that method here and the cakes always turn out the same every single time. That is the beauty of weight versus volume measurement, where your cup volume may differ from my cup volume, and hence affect the way the cake turns out.
The bake time is literally 30 minutes for the cake.
Cake Steps and Times Outline
The cake steps and times are outlined here to give you a fair estimate of how long the whole process takes:
Cake making time : Not more than 15 minutes
Cake baking time : 30 minutes
Cooling time : 1 hour
In the fridge for the cakes to set and get cold : 2 hours
When the cake is baking, cooling, and resting in the fridge, I prepare the simple syrup, buttercreams, and get the piping bags with the different colors ready to pipe the design as well.
Simple syrup : Not more than 10 minutes
Making the buttercream : Not more than 15 minutes for each flavor
Mixing colors and assembling piping bags with piping tips : 30 minutes
Crumb coat the cake : 20 to 30 minutes
Rest time in the fridge : 20 minutes
Coat the cake again : 10 to 15 minutes
Rest time in the fridge : 20 minutes
Time to pipe the design : Depends upon the design
Strawberry Buttercream
I use freeze dried strawberry powder to make the strawberry buttercream. There are so many different brands available now on Amazon. It gives a natural flavor and color to the buttercream, and makes it so potent and beautifully fruity and fragrant! I used the strawberry buttercream, only to layer between the 2 cakes.
Yuzu Buttercream
I used yuzu juice from Japan to make the yuzu buttercream. Yuzu is such a beautiful flavor that I simply love! Yuzu grows in the abundant mountains of Wakayama, Japan. The nutrient sea breeze of the current & the warm climate create a delicious citrus. Using 100% Wakayama’s yuzu, you can taste the natural & historical flavor. I get it from Amazon, linked here. Yuzu juice is not like lemon juice, it has a distinct beautiful flavor when added to desserts. I used yuzu buttercream to crumb coat the cake, as well as for the final design.
The design that I used for the cake is below. I used it as inspiration to make the design on my cake. Inspiration is everywhere. It is for you to see how you want to use the inspiration for your creative work. My favorite thing to do is translate wall papers or designs that I find on Pinterest or Google, into edible art, like this cake. I hope I can inspire you to do the same with your work and your bakes!
The flavors in the cake of jasmine green tea cake, along with the strawberry buttercream in the middle layer, and yuzu buttercream on the outside, along with the design, makes for a well rounded flavor composition of fruity, citrus(from the yuzu) and floral earthiness from the jasmine green tea. I loved this cake so much that I am going to translate it to a pound cake with simply yuzu buttercream. The cake is super moist from the butter and the olive oil, along with the jasmine green tea flavored simple syrup. This is one of my favorite cakes that I have made to date!
You can also simply bake the cake and have it as a plain tea cake! It has so much flavor in it!
I hope you get to make this cake. If you do try this recipe, please do not forget to tag #thejamlab on Instagram, and/or leave me a blog post on this post!
Hope you all enjoy the wonderful Spring weather!
XO
Amisha
PS. This blog post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill. The content and all opinions are my own.
