Matcha Cream Cheese Frosting

This weekend was all about trying new things.  I got to use my new cupcake corer, my new cupcake caddy, and try my hand at matcha buttercream! Matcha is a finely ground, powdered green tea that has amazing health benefits because you're consuming the entire tea leaf, rather than just water that was infused with the leaf. 

Since I'm all organic and natural in the rest of my life, I've decided to cut down on food dyes in my baking, which is really only occurring in frosting at this point.  One of the first tips I read about was using matcha as a natural green food coloring.  That, combined with dessert day at work, and an extra package of cream cheese in the fridge =  this frosting.  I put it on top of a vanilla cupcake filled with lemon curd.  Yum!

This made enough to frost 2 dozen cupcakes comfortably, but probably 1 dozen if you're piling them high with frosting:)

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 oz package cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar
1T matcha

Preparation:

Sift the powdered sugar and matcha together. 

In a mixer fitted with the whip attachment, whip the butter and cream cheese together until creamy.  Slowly add in the sifted powdered sugar/matcha and whip until no lumps remain, scraping bowl as necessary.

Store in the refrigerator if not using immediately. 

No artificial dyes here!

It's that easy. 

PS - this was also on my weekend agenda.  You've got to love Oregon:)