Matcha Green Tea Powder

Late last year a company called Matcha Source contacted me and asked if I would like a sample of green tea to try their product.  I jumped at the opportunity because I enjoy the taste of green tea and like to experiment with baked goods with an asian flair (incoporating green tea, azuki beans, yuzu, etc). 



I was sent a sample of their Gotcha Match Cafe Grade powder. The scientist in me tasted the powder straight and it had an authentic green tea flavor.   I then tried out Matcha Source's Chilled Green Tea Latte recipe and it was yummy! I did doctor it up with some splenda to give the latte a little bit more sweetness. 

Matcha Source also sent me a bodum frother so that I could froth milk for my green tea lattes. 



I have a little bit of matcha powder left and used it on my macarons (see previous post) and am debating what I want to do with the remaining powder. I was thinking about creating a Green Tea-rimisu (get it? tirimisu) and instead of soaking lady fingers in coffee, I'd soak them in green tea.  I can just imagine it now, a pastel green tiramisu with matcha powder dusted on the top layer of whipped cream. 

Matcha (Green Tea) Macarons!

 

This past Christmas, my friend Erika sent me "I love macarons" by Hisako Ogita.  I would always talk about macarons in lab with her, so in her cute letter to me she wrote, "I saw this book and thought about you." I've attempted macarons before, but this time decided to try Hisako Ogita's recipe with the macaronage method.  The "macaronage" method involves folding and lifting the batter several times to achieve the correct consistency of the batter to produce perfectly textured macarons.

The recipe for macarons is quite simple.  The base formula consists of almond meal

(I bought mine at Central Market in the bulk foods aisle), powdered sugar, granulated sugar, salt, egg whites, flavoring (I used matcha powder from Matcha Source).  Here's  a picture of the mixture of dry ingredients. 

  

I guess it helps to follow the directions and draw uniform circles on the bottom side of the parchment paper so that your macarons will have a uniform size and shape. 

 

Here's the baked macarons (see their cute little feet!).  I followed the instructions, but tweaked a few things.  I did not follow the author's advice to use organic powdered sugar.  I used the typical (and cheaper) powdered sugar because in reality, both sugars contain some kind of starch (corn or tapioca) so I really think you'd end up with the same finished product.  Maybe I'll conduct an experiment on the effects of organic versus regular powdered sugar for macaron-making and run a sensory test to determine the differences...

 I also reduced the bake time a little because I thought they looked dry and done. 

  I kept rolling my eyes as Mike jokingly critiqued the shape and colors of macarons and said that they were "unacceptable" and then popped them in his mouth. I think he liked them because I left a container at home of the "unacceptable" macarons (there were about 10 pieces) and when I got back from work, they were all gone. 

 

My filled macaron.  Mike thought that a dark chocolate ganache would overpower the matcha macarons, so I ended up spreading whipped cream between two cookies. 

If you want to read more about macarons, check out this blog.  It's really interesting to read about all her adventures in macaron-making.