Matcha Red Bean Rolls

Korean desserts are often composed with either green tea or sweet red beans. You can have green tea ice cream, green tea rice cakes, red bean rice cakes, red beans on shaved ice with green tea ice cream... As you can see, there's a whole lot to choose from! For the dessert buffet I prepared yesterday, I decided to make the following recipe: Matcha spongecake with sweet red bean filling! Perfect harmony... just perfect.



Ingredients


(Makes 2 sheets of sponge cake in 15cm square molds, adapted from www. shizuokagourmet.wordpress.com)

Sponge cake batter

• 2 large eggs, room temperatue
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour, sifted
• 2 teaspoons matcha powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Sweet bean paste filling

• 400g dried red beans
• 200g sugar
• 5 tablespoons water
• pinch of salt

Preparation

Soak the dried red beans (pat) in water over night.

Boil the red beans with new water in a large pot with a pinch of salt until the beans are soft and cracked. Drain water and pour the beans into a food processor. Blend until beans are smooth but still have some bitey bits to it. Scoop the beans into a saucepan, add the water and sugar and simmer over low heat. Stir occasionally to prevent from burning. The beans will turn darker in colour and the texture should be easy to spread.

Preheat oven to 200°C. Beat the eggs at room temperature in a stand mixer, mix for 4 minutes until foamy and thick. Keep beating while you add in the sugar, matcha powder and sift in the flour. Once the mixture is bubbly and thick, pour half of the mixture into the baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 8-10 minutes. In the meantime lay out a clean kitchen cloth onto a flat surface. Dampen the cloth with wet hands or with a water spray. Take the batter out and tip the batter facedown onto the cloth. Leave it to cool down. Once it has cooled down completely, take off the baking sheet carefully.  Spread the bean paste evenly onto the squares and either 1. roll the spongecake into roll-cakes, which will give you a spiral shape when cut, or 2. simply spread a little bit more red bean paste onto the sponge and roll them into "tunnel-like" cakes as shown in the picture above!