I’m not sure it’s apt to call something bright green a “brownie”, but for lack of a better word, I’m going to roll with it. I’m also hoping you guys, upon noticing that this has sugar in it, will turn a blind eye and accept that I have a terrible tendency to count anything green tea related as an exception to the anti-sugar rule. Mostly because it is unlikely I will encounter it anywhere other than in my own kitchen and am therefore unable to run out and binge on it like I could chocolate… Shame on me, I know…
Anyway, last weekend I was invited to a birthday party (or three!), where the birthday boy himself happens to be a well-established baker/chef, meaning that if I was going to supplement my gift with something to satisfy his sweet tooth, I was going to have to go the exotic route to stand a chance of impressing him. His girlfriend’s love of green tea ended up inspiring me to put my matcha powder, which had been untouched for months, to good use.
Green tea and white chocolate brownies
Ingredients:
The amounts here are intended for a 16cm x 16cm oven dish
70 g Self-raising flour (or normal flour with 0.5 tsp of baking powder)
20 g Matcha powder
120g White chocolate
2 tbsp Milk
70g Butter
60g Caster sugar
2 Eggs (whisked)
20g Almonds or Cashew nuts (crushed)
Instructions:
1. Leave the eggs and butter out on the counter until they are both at room temperature. Preheat the over to 170℃. Butter your oven dish.
2. Whisk together the butter and sugar until creamy (3 minutes or so). Add the eggs in three batches and continue to whisk well. Add the milk and whisk until everything is smooth.
3. Mix the matcha powder and flour together. Mix in the buttery sugar mixture. Stir well.
4. Melt the white chocolate (one minute in the microwave should do it) and mix this in. Finally, sprinkle in the crushed nuts and pour the mixture into your oven dish.
5. Bake until you can poke a toothpick into the middle without any mixture sticking to it. For this batch, 20-25 minutes will suffice, however, if you make a larger batch, you may need between 25 and 30 minutes.
If the brownish/green tinge on the top bothers you, I suggest dusting them with icing sugar.
They go well with milk, green tea or coffee and are a fantastic pick me up. Granted, you do have to be a green tea fan to appreciate them as the flavor is quite strong.
If you think you’d like these, then stay tuned for a matcha truffle recipe I’m in the process of developing. I need to source some cacao butter if I’m to attempt a fructose free version, but I’ll leave that til 2013. Obviously, one of my resolutions will be no sugar in 2013.
Where can someone find matcha powder in Zurich? (I tried the obvious places like the Asian market in the basement of the HB and a bigger Asian store near Wiedikon.)
Hi Jeremy!
I have seen it at globus and jelmoli, but it is rather pricey. I do recall seeing it at Nishi too. I admit I’m not sure if Yumihana carry it – their stock varies alot anyway when it comes to Japanese food. Many people ask me where to buy matcha here and mostly for cooking purposes, meaning they don’t want to drop loads of cash for it – perhaps I should start an import business :-)
Delicious! Keep on trying to impress the chef :-)!