The Ever-Green Oreo Matcha Cake

This is the story of a cake that went through various stages of indecisiveness. On my part, of course. Not so much the cake’s. Frankly, I think the cake didn’t really care what direction it went, so long as it was going somewhere. Mostly in everyone else’s tummies.

So my brother graduated from college this week, and that in itself was cause for celebration. And baking. Lots of baking. When I asked him what flavor he was feeling cake-wise, he had easily responded with “cookies and cream” (with a wily smiley, may I add). No brainer. I was totally doing something Oreo-related in that case.

Matcha Oreo Cookie Cake

First off, the recipe itself was kind of a conglomeration of two recipes: the cake came from Lindsay’s Life, Love, and Sugar blog, while the frosting came from Sara’s Our Best Bites. Honestly, if I hadn’t been so averse to actually using shortening on my frosting, I probably would have stuck with Lindsay’s recipe from beginning to end. I’m still not sure how I feel about Sara’s buttercream icing, it was far too Magnolia Bakery buttery for me (and I’m not a big fan of Magnolia icing, to be honest). That said, I made the executive decision to add some matcha powder, so I went from having just a regular Oreo cake to a deliciously not-too-sweet matcha Oreo cake.

Which, to be honest, worked in the frosting’s favor.

The Cake

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s Special Dark)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk (I substituted this with 1 cup whole milk and a teaspoon of lemon juice)
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water

For the step-by-step instructions, visit Lindsay’s site.

The Frosting

12 Tbsp flour
2 cups milk (I used whole milk)
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups granulated sugar
4 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp matcha powder
13-14 diced Oreo cookies (I used 14 of the Birthday-filled Oreos)

For the step-by-step instructions, visit Sara’s site.

Some Changes

** Depending on the oven (and the size of your pan), the bake-time could very well vary. Because I’d broken my cake up to six small rounds (three circular cakes stacked in two), the cakes would be much higher and more baking time was required for both batches. This could also be attributed to my oven, which is old and who knows what temperature it was on when I set it to 300 F. My bakes took approximately 30 minutes for the first batch (which I’d divided into 1-cup batters) and 40 minutes for the second (which I’d divided into 1 1/2-cup batters).

** The only thing extra I added was the matcha powder in the frosting. This was mixed in BEFORE I folded in the Oreo cookie crumbs. Usually matcha-flavored things tend to turn the white bakes into a beautiful light green color, though it got much darker after the Oreo cookies went into the mix. Not a big deal, but given the option, I prefer matcha over Oreos any day. That said, it was my brother’s express wish for cookies and cream…

Some Assembly Necessary

As I said before, I wasn’t a big fan of the frosting. Because it didn’t rely on a powdered sugar base, it was difficult to work with; it was super soft, light, and it hadn’t reached my ideal kind of stiffness by the time I’d finished mixing it. As such, assembling the first of my cakes was borderline disastrous.

But I pulled through by throwing the frosting into the fridge to harden a bit, just so I could work with it.

Verdict: Now, my piping skills aren’t great, but I liked how it came out! The frosting wasn’t as sweet and as buttery as I feared it would get, especially after the addition of the matcha. The chocolate cake itself was delicious and moist. And the family is quite happy with the results, which was the important part!