One of the really nifty blogs I follow, Diet, Dessert and Dogs, hosts a challenge every month called the SOS Challenge. This month’s ingredient is none other than my favorite bean: the adzuki! Well of course I had to participate!
I went over and over recipes in my head. I still have a few back there I’ll create at a later date. This recipe was perfect since I had everything on hand!
Who else loves the combination of matcha and adzuki? It’s a pretty common combo in asian sweets and boy do I LOVE asian sweets. Every time I go to H-Mart I can’t help but buy another red bean cake. I’ve even got a black sesame version in the freezer. Mmm..
This recipe is a combination of a vegan marble cake and one of those chewy asian rice delights. The only thing I would do differently is to mash up the beans a little before adding them to the batter.
If you want more of a typical cake texture, you can use regular flour instead of the rice flour. Me? I love the unique chewiness. Chewy.. nom nom nom.
Check out Diet, Dessert and Dogs, she’s got some awesome recipes out there!
Adzuki Matcha Cakes
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 tablespoons glutinous rice flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 tablespoons oil (I used olive oil but coconut oil would be yummy)
1/3 cup (scant) brown rice syrup
1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon unsweetened almond milk
1 teaspoon matcha powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
3/4 cup cooked adzuki beans, slightly mashed
Preheat oven to 350.
In a medium bowl, combine flours and baking soda. In a separate bowl whisk together oil, milk and brown rice syrup. Pour wet mixture into dry and stir to combine. Divide the batter in half, adding matcha and ginger to one part and adzuki beans to the other part.
Lightly grease a mini muffin tin. Spoon batter into tins, alternating matcha and bean flavors. Bake 15-25 minutes or until the cakes start to pull away from the sides of the tin. Cool 5 minutes in the tin and the rest of the way on a cooling rack.
This recipe made 12 mini muffins for me. There was a little batter left over, so I spooned it into a little dish and microwaved it for a quick treat. That seems to happen a lot. =)
Peanut Butter and Ginger 
I LOVE matcha but have never had it combined with adzukis–what a great idea! And I, too, love that chewy glutinous flour texture. I must figure out a GF version of these–they sound fabulous! Thanks so much for entering the recipe in this month’s SOS Challenge! 🙂
Thanks, Ricki! I’m so glad the two of you host this Challenge! It’s so great to see what everyone comes up with. =)
These looks so interesting, and weirdly delicious. 🙂 I need to make them! I will need to sub other GF flours for the AP flour, but otherwise I”ll try them just as written. Thanks for a great entry to the SOS!
Thank you, Kim! I’m so thankful you and Ricki host this challenge! I hope you enjoy the recipe!
Everytime I visit Atlanta or pass through, I have my cooler in hand. We stop at the H-Mart ( I am assuming that I am referencing the same store) and we load up! Awesome place.
Your Macha and adzuki is very cool. Very interesting combination of flavors. I am not familiar with either flavors but, no doubt I would enjoy them.
Cheers.
Velva
I’m sure they’re the same store, I know there are several locations around Atlanta. It is one of my absolute favorite stores to go into!
Matcha is a very concentrated, bitter green tea flavor. I never used to be one that thought sweetened beans would be palatable.. but oh man, now I’m hooked. I would almost take a red bean cake over a candy bar any day!
Give me a Z! Or not… | Eating like a horse
Looks a bit scary! I’ve never really liked adzuki beans, but I do like matcha, so I’m tempted.
Haha! They are quite green! I know that some beans just aren’t loveable for some people. I’ve found a few I just don’t care for no matter how many times I try them. You could certainly just leave out the adzuki beans and maybe do a lemon flavor in that half of the batter. Or just leave it all as matcha cakes! =) Good luck!