Marble Matcha Cheesecake

by ThingsWeLike


To make a little commemoration to the born of this blog, the first post would be of matcha cheesecake!

I still vaguely remember the last matcha themed cake I've touched on was for a friend's birthday. Oh boy, the trouble we went through to make the cake was unimaginable. There was about 5 to 6 inexperienced kids picking out green tea leaves from genmaicha (brown rice tea), substituting plain yoghurt with strawberry flavoured yoghurt 'cause we got the wrong one, covering the burnt cake with a layer of beaten egg whites and so on. Yet, weirdly enough, out of 3 cakes that were put on the table that night, our non-recognisable green tea yoghurt cake got into the limelight with candles lighting up on top. KiJun, if you're reading this, I really hope no one complained to you about stomach aches the next day.

Did a plain New York cheesecake few months back and now my partner in crime,TheSilentTiger, said she would like to try matcha cheesecake as she has a craving for it and I say, why not? And to put some fun into it, we went on trying out marble cheesecake. This cake is very dense, it might not be a favourite to those who like soft and fluffy cheesecakes.

There's a video provided for your convenience, if you prefer watching actions and sounds instead of endless words.

The ingredients below are for a 21cm diameter and 4cm depth cake pan.

(A) - Biscuit base
8 pieces of digestive biscuits (finely crushed)
30gm of salted butter (melted to room temperature or 10 seconds in microwave and let cool)
* The base came out really nice, but if you like it less salty, you might want to change the butter to unsalted ones.

(B) - Matcha cheesecake
250gm of Philadelphia cream cheese (room temperature)
1/3 cup of sugar or according to individual's taste buds
1 egg
slightly less than a 1/4 cup of heavy cream
1 1/4 tsp of matcha powder (1 tsp for darker green and 1/4 tsp for lighter green)

By cutting cream cheese into pieces before throwing them into mixing bowl will make the beating easier.

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Line the cake pan with aluminium foil covering to the base as well. Crush the digestive biscuits into crumbs and mix in the melted butter.
2. Even out the mixture into the cake pan and press firmly into the bottom of the pan. Then push into oven for 10 minutes.
3. While waiting, use a mixer to cream the cream cheese till smooth then add in sugar and beat for another minute.
4. Scrape down the sides and add in heavy cream, then egg (add in eggs one by one if you're making a cake double of this size to avoid curdling of mixture)
5. Divide half of the mixture to another bowl and add in 1 tsp of shifted matcha powder, mix well. Add in remaining matcha powder to another bowl and mix well.
6.  Spread 2 spoonfuls of lighter green mixture onto the crust and then 2 spoonfuls of darker green on top and then drizzle remaining lighter green mixture on another level and then drizzle remaining darker green.
7. Gently shake the pan (left and right of course) to smoothen the batter and then draw the patterns to whichever direction you like using a pointy end (we used a satay stick)
8. Place the mixture into a larger baking pan and fill a 2cm level of boiling water for bain-marie. This is to prevent moisture to be drained of the cake. I've tried making cheesecakes without bain-marie, and it ended up sunken in the middle.
9. Bake the mixture for 10 minutes in 160C and then turn down to 140C for another 30 minutes.
10. Leave to cool with a gap in the oven door for an hour or till completely cool.
11. Remove from oven and place in fridge for 4 hours or overnight to serve.

Leaving a gap to remove the hot air slowly

MatchaCake&Wine!