Haikugirl's Japan

This was supposed to be November’s recipe but November was a bit of a crazy month, so I’m afraid it’s coming to you a little bit late. As it’s getting so cold here in London I’ve been enjoying lots of comfort food, and if you’re feeling the same you’ll love these! This month’s recipe is an adaptation of one I found on the Japan Centre website, and I bought all of the Japanese ingredients in the Japan Centre. Although the cake part of the recipe worked, I had to think quick when it came to the icing as the recipe I was following didn’t seem to work at all. I soon realised that the problem was the sugar, and replaced the icing with the same icing I used back in July on my Double Matcha and Chocolate Matcha Cupcakes. Luckily it worked, although they could have been better. Anyway, here they are…

Azuki, Kinako & Matcha Cupcakes

Ingredients (makes 12)

• 100g flour (I used Masuda Gourmet Low Gluten Wheat Flour from the Japan Centre)
• 40g Kinako (Soy bean) Flour (Read more about kinako here)
• 40g Sugar
• 60g Azuki Beans (Read more about azuki beans here)
• 2tsp Baking Powder
• 200ml milk
• 100ml Vegetable Oil

Ingredients for the icing

Ignore the cream in this picture and replace it with icing sugar and vanilla extract!

Cupcake Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4, and line a cupcake try with cases.

Combine the flour, kinako flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl.

Slowly add the milk and vegetable oil.

When the batter is smooth, add the azuki beans and mix well.

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake for about 20 minutes.

When the cupcakes have cooked, leave them on a wire rack to cool.

Icing method

Beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar until smooth.

Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and the matcha powder to produce a buttercream with a smooth consistency.

Using a piping bag, ice the cupcakes and enjoy!

Well, these weren’t my best creations, but they sure do taste good! The icing could have been smoother, but I was getting frustrated after I had to dump the first batch of icing and my kitchen was covered in matcha! (>_<) Actually, they didn’t even need the icing, as the cupcakes themselves taste pretty good on their own. If you’ve never tried kinako before I highly recommend it as a cupcake ingredient – it’s not like anything you usually find in a cupcake!

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I’ll be back sometime later this month with a bonus recipe for December (as this was really the November recipe). If you have any suggestions, or perhaps you would like me to try one of your recipes from a book or website, please leave a comment below or get in touch! I’m particularly interested in helping to promote Japanese recipe books, so do let me know if you have one I might like!