There are 5 main components for the cake, including the macarons (green tea sponge, whipped cream frosting, green tea glaze, green tea macaron shells, strawberry curd filling). The optimal timeline is probably: make the cake and whipped cream and assemble and chill. Make mirror glaze and cool to RT. While that's cooling, make the macarons.
1. Matcha Sponge : [makes 1 jelly roll sheet]
112g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
16 g matcha powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 large eggs, separated
156 g granulated sugar
60 g whole milk
1. Oven at 400F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat
2. Whisk together sifted flour, baking powder, green tea and salt.
3. In a different, large bowl, whisk egg yolks, sugar, and milk until pale.
4. Separately, whisk egg whites until medium stiff peaks (if you whisk too stiff, it's harder to incorporate).
5. Add dry mixture to wet mixture and fold together. Then slowly fold in the medium stiff egg whites.
6. Pour batter onto the baking sheet and then rap the sheet down a few times to release any big air bubbles.
7. Bake for 9 minutes (a toothpick should go in and out cleanly).
8. Using a knife or something thin, move along the edge of the pan and cake. Remove cake from pan and silpat and let cool on a baking rack.
Note: I'm guesstimating on amounts for the whipped cream frosting. To make it stabilized, just make a corn starch paste first and add enough to make the whipped cream firm. Also sugar can always be adjusted based on your sweetness preferences.
2. Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting:
350 g heavy whipping cream
10 g powdered sugar
10 g powdered sugar
10 g corn starch
some strawberries, not wet and sliced
1. Whenever whipping your own cream, make sure the first thing you do is throw your bowl and whisk attachment into the fridge or freezer. Cold is your best friend.
2. First make your corn starch paste. Add corn starch, one 10g of powdered sugar, and about 100 g of cream and stir in a pot.
3. Heat over medium, stirring constantly. When it becomes paste-like (you will see a drastic change in the consistency from liquidy to custard like), take the pan off the heat and continue to mix until smooth. Make sure it cools down to room temp (throw in freezer if need be).
4. Take out chilled bowl and whisk and add the second powdered sugar and remainder of the cream. Whisk until soft peaks.
5. Whisking at a fast speed, add in the paste (make sure it's not hot!), a bit at a time.
6. Whisk until stiff peaks.
7. Remove about 1/3 of the whipped cream and save that for the outside of the cake.
8. With the remaining 2/3, fold in the strawberries. You could also use whatever other fruit you like. Purees should work too, but just be careful of how much you add to not deflate the whipping cream (I usually make extra whipping cream if I know I'm adding a puree).
3. Matcha Mirror Glaze:
100 g white chocolate
35 g condensed milk
50 g sugar
61.25 g corn syrup
25 ml water
4 g gelatin (+ about 15 ml water to bloom)
3 g matcha powder
1. Mix gelatin in water until you get an apple sauce consistency.
2. In a small pot add corn syrup, water, matcha powder, and sugar and bring to a boil.
3. Add in gelatin and condensed milk. Whisk until gelatin fully dissolved.
4. In a bowl with the chocolate, add the liquid mixture and whisk until chocolate is fully melted. If you have a hand blender, I highly recommend that you use it to blend the chocolate.
5. Add desired food coloring.
6. Bring the glaze to room temperature or slightly colder. (You can cover it with cling wrap and throw it in the fridge, but be careful. You don't want it to solidify, but don't want to melt the whipped cream frosting either.)
4. Matcha Macaron Shells:
For about 10 1.5 inch macarons:
46 g almond flour (sift, no big almond pieces)
40 g powdered sugar
2 g matcha powder
35 g egg whites (room temp)
35 g granulated sugar
1. Oven to 300F (or 325F, see below). Measure out and sift your powdered sugar, matcha, and almond flour. Whisk together and set aside.
2. Make your meringue. Beat/ whisk your egg whites until frothy and start to incorporate the granulated sugar a bit a time. Beat until stiff peaks.
3. Okay. You should look up macaronage (folding of ingredients) on Youtube if you don’t know how already. Make sure you set aside some of the batter if you plan to make faces.
In summary: add in dry ingredients to the meringue, a third at a time until mixed. And folding by basically scraping along the edge of the bowl and then pressing down along the center in sort of a J shape. Do this until you have a lava like consistency, where you can pick up your spatula and the batter will drop down in a ribbon. My test is to bang the bowl on the table and see if the ribbon that just fell incorporates back into the main blob—if it does, it’s ready. Otherwise, I do a few more folds. Put into a piping bag.
Add black/ other food coloring to the batter you set aside and fold until the right consistency and put into a bag. (I have tiny piping tips, but if you don't, a sandwich bag with the very very end cut off would work well too.)
4. Pipe out your macarons. I use a silpat (would highly recommend). Rap the baking sheet against the table a few times. Pipe on derpy faces onto the shells. You could also probably use a toothpick if you're gentle enough.
5. I hate waiting for the shells to dry, so I cheat and actually put the oven temp at 325. Then I open the oven and hold the tray in the oven, rotating it every 10 seconds or so for about a minute. Then again for another 30 seconds. This quickly dries out the shells :p.
You want to be able to touch the shell and have it not be sticky. Then I drop down the oven temp back to 300 (it’s about this low anyways since the door has been open.)
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
5. Strawberry Curd:
5 - 8 strawberries, pureed (you can sieve if you want)
16 g corn starch
50 g granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
10ish g lemon juice
28.5 g butter (sometimes less, depending on how thick you make the custard)
1. Add puree to a pot. Heat up until simmering.
2. Lightly beat the egg yolk and add sugar, sifted corn starch, and lemon juice. Get it so it's not lumpy.
3. While whisking, slowly add the heated up puree onto the egg/sugar/cornstarch/lemon. You're tempering the egg to prevent it from scrambling. Once it's fully incorporated, add the mixture back into the pot and stir constantly on medium. Eventually, it'll start to thicken. I usually thicken until it's a nice paste.
4. Take off the heat and stir in the butter, a little a time.
5. I transfer to a piping bag and chill it in the fridge for a short while to firm up before piping onto my macaron shells.
Assembly:
1. Slice off a small piece for topping decoration. Slice cake into thirds. Remove any obvious crumbs.
2. Smooth out a layer of strawberry whipped cream between the cake.
3. Use the normal whipped cream to surround the cake. I go slowly to not get crumbs showing. You can add a small amount then throw it in the fridge. Then add the final amount to cover any crumbs.
4. Once finished frosting, chill the cake in the fridge or freezer.
5. When mirror glaze if room temp and the cake is cool, add it over the top, with only small amounts so you can get some nice drips.
6. Assemble macarons.
7. Make the top look pretty by adding sliced strawberries, macarons, cake fragments (from that small piece you cut off before you sliced it into thirds), and strawberry curd.
Enjoy!
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