Matcha Chiffon Cake with Black Sesame Cream

In a microwavable mixing bowl, whisk milk and oil together until well combine and microwave for 20 seconds.

Sift cake flour and matcha powder into the bowl, roughly mix just until you can't see any dry flour, no need to mix until smooth yet.

Add in egg yolks and salt then whisk just until smooth. Mix in the motion of writing "Z" and "N" instead of a circular motion in order to prevent developing gluten. Cover and set it aside.

Preheat oven to 310°F (155°C)

In a dry and clean mixing bowl, add vinegar in egg white and then beat until the egg white is foaming.

Add in a third of the sugar before beating some more. Do this three times, beating at medium speed, until all the sugar is incorporated and you can form soft peaks with the egg whites. (see the pictures in the main post as a reference)

Scoop about one cup of egg white into the egg yolk batter and mix to combine before pouring the resulting mixture back into the rest of the egg white.

Mix with a spatula from bottom to top in the motion of writing "J" while turning the mixing bowl, so the mixture can be well combined. Don't stir in a circular motion or over mix, as that would cause the mixture to deflate.

Pour the mixture into a 6 inch cake pan, use a chopstick or skewer to run through the batter to remove larger air bubbles.

Bake the cake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

If you want to control the pattern of the cracks on the cake, you can take the cake out from the oven after the top of the cake seems to have set (about 12 minutes into baking), and score the top of the cake. In my picture, I've scored the top of the cake in the pattern of an asterisk and the resulting cracks propagated in that shape.

While the cake is baking, place a baking rack on top of two cups for the cake to cool down later. The cups help keep the cake away from the counter so it can cool down faster without absorbing the moist air back to the cake.

When the cake is done baking, take the cake out and drop the cake pan on the counter from about 3 inches up one time before quickly turning it upside down on a baking rack. Doing this helps prevent the cake from shrinking. Let the cake cool down completely before unmolding. This usually takes about 1-2 hours.

Add sugar and black sesame paste in the cold whipped cream and whisk with an electric mixer until it thickens but still remains a little bit runny (reference picture in the main post). Store it in the fridge until ready to use.

Unmold the cake and place it upside down on a plate or cake stand. Pour the desired amount of black sesame whipped cream on top of the cake and use the back of the spoon to push some of the cream to the edge and let it drip down a little bit off the sides if you'd like.