Matcha and sweet beans bread

Green tea and sweet beans...This is my ultimate Japanese bread! Some people might already know but I LOVE green tea, and that's definitely a taste of home for me.

I added green tea powder into a soft Japanese style bread dough. Even a small amount of green tea powder is enough to make the dough beautiful green and you will immediately start to smell the distinctive flavour.

I also kneaded in sweet kidney beans to make it proper Japanesey. :)

I finished baking bread just in time for breakfast, and it was simply awesome... The sweet beans were spread nicely and blended with the aromatic green tea flavour so perfectly.

Nothing can beat freshly baked breads and a taste of home...

Ingredients:

Strong flour 245g

Matcha powder 5g

Yeast 3g

Salt 3g

Egg 1 + Milk =200g

Butter 30g

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Kidney beans 1tin

Brown sugar 50g

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Egg for glaze

1. Place the beans and sugar in a sauce pan, cover with water, and cook until the water has reduced and become sticky. Cool it aside.

2. Put all the ingredients except butter and cooked beans in the standing mixer, and knead for a few minutes.

3. Add butter and beans. Keep kneading for 10 minutes.

4. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover with cling film and rest it until it has doubled in size.

5. Punch the dough to let the air out. Divide into 10 pieces and make them into balls. Cover with cling film and rest for 10 minutes.

6. Gently reshape the balls into the shape you like and place on a baking tray. Rest until they have doubled in size.

7. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Egg wash the bread and bake for 15 minutes.

Vanilla & Matcha mille feuille

I made puff pastry for Andy because he wanted to make a French biscuit that required puff pastry. (I forgot the name of it but the sweet and crunchy biscuits were very nice... so good that they were gone before we had a chance to take photos...)

With the left over puff pastry, I made mille feuille. One with vanilla custard cream and the other with matcha (green tea) custard cream. The puff pastry puffed up a little too much for mille feuille (I should have rolled the pastry thinner... ;( ... ), but they tasted great, anyway.

As I've mentioned many times in the past, I love green tea, and green tea custard is not an exception! It's so good... and a great variation of vanilla custard. Mix one tea spoon of green tea powder with one tea spoon of water, and add the mixture into the vanilla custard.

Enjoy an European style dessert and a taste of Japan at the same time! ;D

Dessert for a Japanese night...

Last night friend of mine from Japan (Oh, her name is also Yumiko!), who is currently traveling the world came around stayed with us. Because she spent last 9 months in South America, I thought she must be missing Japanese food.... So, I made a very Japanese dinner for us;)

Japanese curry with some sticky Japanese rice, and of course Japanese dessert! A sort of green tea pudding... The reason I said "sort of" is because it's not like usual egg based pudding...

I used almond paste powder and gelatin to set the pudding, which gave the pudding a very unique texture. It was like pudding, jelly and bit of mochi in one... Hum, addictive... We had it with sweetened soy powder, きなこ(Kinako), which for us "Just like Japan"....

Hope my friend, Yumiko-san, felt a bit of Japan before moving on to another place... :D

Ingredients;

Almond paste powder 3 tbsp

Gelatin 1 tsp

Water 450 ml

Green tea powder 2 tsp

1. Boil water. Add almond paste powder and mix well.

2. Combine green tea powder and a few tsp of water and make a paste.

3. Add 2 into 1 and mix well.

4. When it the liquid becomes little sticky, turn the heat off and sprinkle gelatin in. Mix well.

5. Cool it in the fridge until it's set.

抹茶あずきかき氷 (Macha Azuki shaved ice)

There are things that I love in the Japanese summer... a long nap during a boiling hot day, loud cicada's sound, fire works festival, and of course icy foods and drinks...

かき氷(Kakigori, shaved ice, similar to snow cone) is one of my must-have Japanese summer desserts. As you might have guessed from the name, it's a shaved ice dessert served usually with flavoured syrups such as strawberry, lemon, melon... But my favourite is "green tea with azuki (抹茶あずき, Macha Azuki)" and condensed milk poured on top... hoy yeh, lovely...

So... I made... yeah let's say... "an attempt" to make it at home although I don't have a machine to shave the ice finely...
My way was damn easy. I cooked azuki nice and sweet (see how to cook it here), dissolved macha powder in milk, mix it with the azuki, then put them in the freezer. I kept crushing the ice bits every couple of hours until it finally set... The final result was rather impressive!! Nice, icy and sort of airy home-made Kakigori was done!

Tasting time... tasting time... tastin... well.., as always... I ended up destroying it... I guess that tells you how good it was...
Green tea and azuki... taste of home and childhood... can't beat that!!

Macha Financier

On the other day, we took a day trip to France to get some nice bits there. Aaah, I love french supermarket. Especially, their kitchen section has more variation of baking moulds.
There I found a petite financier mould made with silicon, which make up 20 small financiers. Very pretty... immediately..., it was in the shopping basket...

So... today, I used my lovely new mould to try a French-Japanese fusion cake, Macha Financier. I love macha. It is another taste of home for me;) A table spoonful of macha powder is enough to get the unique flavour and beautiful green colour of macha (see the picture!) :D

A hint of macha flavour in the light yet moist almond cake really made me want to have a strong Japanese Hojicha. Great way to feel the French and Japanese in the same mouthful!

Ingredients;

Egg white 3

Almond powder 50g

Flour 50g

Sugar 120g

Macha powder 1tbsp

Butter (Melted) 130g

1.Preheat the oven to 200º. Beat egg white until it's fluffy.

2. In a bowl, mix together almond powder, flour, sugar and macha powder.

3. Make a well in the centre of 2, and pour 1 into it. Fold in lightly.

4. Add melted butter into 3, fold in.

5. Pour the mixture into a financier mould.

6. Bake in the preheated oven (200º)for 12 minutes or until the edge of financiers become slightly brown.