Kiwi Matcha Lime Tea Cake

I hesitated a bit to post this recipe, as I feel it needs to be perfected. You see, before the Engineer and I went to San Antonio, I decided to make a quick bread to take a few slices on the plane with us for breakfast (since we were leaving very early and airlines no longer seem to serve any food). The problem was that this tea cake fell apart. It was very good, mind you, but the slices just didn’t hold together, so it was definitely not the type of food to eat on a plane. We ended up freezing most of the loaf (for an occasion when plates and forks will be alright) and ate breakfast at the airport. I’m not sure whether simply adding more flour (or less kiwi purée) to this tea cake would do the trick – I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Also, it wasn’t very sweet. That’s not a bad thing, really, but I have to point out that our kiwis were not very ripe, so if yours are the same, you could add a little sugar. (Maybe the acid in the kiwi reacted with the dairy substitute and curdled it, which made the cake fall apart? I really don’t know.) The flavours did complement each other really well, though.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
2 tsp matcha powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup butter (softened) or lactose-free margarine
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup peeled mashed very ripe kiwi fruit (green, yellow or combination)
zest of one lime



Preheat oven to 350 °F. Grease a 9 X 5 loaf pan, preferably non-stick. Whisk together flour, baking powder baking soda, matcha powder and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time to creamed mixture and thoroughly combine.




Stir in mashed kiwi fruit and lime zest.



Fold in dry ingredients, stirring until batter is completely moistened.




Spoon batter into pan and bake for one hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for 20 minutes on wire rack. Remove from pan and continue cooling on rack.