23andMatcha Raspberry Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a charity bake sale for Parkinson’s Research known as Moving Day (my mom has Parkinson’s and I am deeply moved by this cause). I adapted this matcha/raspberry cupcake recipe from Katie Cakes.

23andMatcha Raspberry Cupcake Recipe

For the cupcakes:

• 1.5 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature (I am often too impatient to let butter come to room temperature naturally so I will microwave cold butter for 20 seconds or less; but room temperature is best practice)
• 175g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 175g (1.5 cups) self raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 2tbsp matcha green tea powder (I hand ground my matcha in a mortar and pestle but I strongly recommend buying pre-ground matcha for a better final texture)
• 50ml whole milk
• 1 jar of good quality raspberry jam (I used Smucker’s seedless raspberry, a childhood favorite)

For the frosting:

• 125g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 250g (2 cups) icing sugar (add more if buttercream isn’t sufficiently stiff)
• 1/2 Tbsp or so of raspberry jam
• 1/2tbsp matcha green tea powder
• 2tbsp whole milk
• freeze dried raspberries to decorate (I prefer whole ones for the aesthetic)
• green tea pocky cut in thirds to decorate (I also dyed green tea pocky with pink icing to make pink pocky but in retrospect should have just gotten raspberry pocky; I used only the rounded tops of the pocky to look like chromosomes)

Instructions:

1. Heat your oven to 350F and line a 12 hole cupcake tray with liners. Spray all cupcake liners with cooking spray to prevent the cupcakes sticking to the liners. Set aside.
2. The the bowl of an electric mixer (I use a hand mixer, but use whatever you have on hand) whip the butter and sugar together till light and creamy, around 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time (I pre-break them in a separate bowl before adding them to the batter to avoid accidentally contaminating the batter with any small shell pieces) mixing between each addition. Add half the flour and mix, add the milk followed by the rest of the flour, the baking powder and matcha powder. Mix till combined the mix in the vanilla extract.
3. I then split the matter into two halves, coloring one with green food coloring and the other with pink food coloring to give a pink and green swirled design.
4. Using an ice cream scoop fill each cupcake liner to 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes until risen and springy when touched (I used half pink and half green batter for each cupcake and the swirled them together with a toothpick). Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before removing to a baking rack to finish cooling.
5. To make the frosting first mix the butter in the bowl of a hand mixer until pale and soft. Add the icing sugar, and the milk. Turn the mixer on low and gradually increase the speed. Whip for 5 minutes, if the frosting looks too stiff add a touch more milk until you reach a nice piping consistency. I then split the icing in half, adding ground matcha powder and green food coloring to one half and raspberry jam, about 1 Tbsp butter, and about 1/4 cup powdered sugar to the other (the jam will thin out the frosting so the butter and sugar addition will re-firm it for piping).
6. Once the cupcakes have cooled take an apple corer or a small knife and hollow out the center of each cupcake and fill with raspberry jam. Fill a piping bag, fitted with an open star nozzle, with the half raspberry frosting and half matcha frosting and pipe a cute swirl on each cake. Use the pocky to make 23andMe chromosomes and add three freeze dried raspberries for additional decoration.