Pre-heat your oven to 350°F. Line the cake pan with parchment paper. My pan was 13 x 9 x 2. You can use whatever sized pan you like, you will just have to adjust for the baking temperature and your layer will be thinner/thicker than the ones pictured in the post.
With a mixer, cream together the room temperature butter and sugar until it becomes pale yellow in colour. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until eggs are well incorporated. Add the vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl, sift matcha powder over the flour - you do not want large clumps of matcha in your cake! Add in the baking powder and salt. Mix well.
Add the bowl of dry ingredients to the bowl of the wet ingredients. Slowly add in the half cup of milk (adjust the amount of milk based on the consistency of the batter).
Bake cake for 40 - 45 minutes, checking the doneness of the cake at around 35 minutes. Let the cake cool completely before removing/cutting it.
Once the cake has completely cooled, use a cake ring and cut out three even layers. If your sheet of cake is not large enough to cut three layers, you can cut out two nice cake layers and use the scraps to construct a bottom layer. Alternatively, you can make a two-layered cake and make mini cakes with the remainder of the cake. The possibilities are endless! I cut out two thick cake layers and cut those in half...making a four layer cake.
To assemble, place a layer of cake down and smother on a generous portion of the cream cheesing filling. Alternate between the cake layer and cream cheese layers until you have a cake with desired cake and cream cheese layers.
Decorate the cake however you like. I used a combination of matcha meringues, berries and flowers. Before I topped the cake with berries and flowers, I dusted a thin coat of matcha sugar on the top layer of the cake - I thought this made the cake look more presentable. To make the matcha sugar, just sift matcha powder over icing sugar and the amount of matcha depends on what colour you want the matcha sugar to be. You can skip this step if your top layer is a cream cheese layer (versus a naked cake layer).
Black sesame cream cheese
In a bowl, beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form and set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, and ground black sesame. Beat until smooth, then gently fold in whipped cream with a spatula.
Optional: Meringue Pebbles (make these the night before):
Preheat the oven to 200F and place a piece of parchment paper atop a baking sheet.
In a glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites until foamy using an electric mixer. Sprinkle in the powdered sugar and matcha powder a little at a time, while continuing to whip at medium speed. When the mixture becomes stiff and shiny, stop mixing, and transfer the mixture to a pastry bag. Pipe the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1.5 hours, turn off oven, and let meringues sit in the oven overnight if possible. Meringues should be dry to the touch and can be easily removed from baking sheet.