Thursday 12 June 2014

Matcha Green Tea Shortbread

I have a lot of trouble sleeping and when I mentioned this to my older brother he suggested I try Matcha Green Tea (sort of like ground green tea as opposed to the infusing leaf type) and in fact was so proud he had come up with a solution that he even bought me some. Now don't get me wrong, it's not horrible or anything (although it is quite distinctive) but the way you're supposed to make it involves whisking to create a foam and, I'll be honest, the whole thing is sort of an ordeal. So, I decided this week when I saw it lying around in the kitchen to try a recipe I'd found on pinterest (this is the original recipe) and make some chocolate dipped Matcha shortbread.

The original recipe makes around 25 biscuits which seemed excessive for a family of three (one of whom doesn't even like chocolate) so I halved the entire thing. It was pretty easy, save shortbread dough being a pain in the arse to work with; but we'll get to that. Add 92g plain flour, 62g cubed, room temperature unsalted butter, 30g caster sugar and 0.5 tsp Matcha Green Tea Powder in a bowl and mix until the ingredients form a dough (tip; mix until sort of sandy and then use your hands to mould into a dough as the heat of your skin will melt the butter and help it to stick together better.) Take a look at the sandy, green mess in your hands... You now need to roll that out. This was enough to bring me close to tears, but I found the best way to do it is to lay on a lightly floured surface and use a tiny bit of dough at a time, heating it with your hands and then rolling and cutting, then moving onto the next piece. It took me a while but eventually I managed to make 11 squares of shortbread. These now need to rest in the fridge for at least an hour. Once they've rested, stick them in the oven on a greased oven tray at gas mark 3 for 20-25 minutes, or until golden.


Once they're out and completely cool (if they're not completely cool they will just crumble into the chocolate, I found this out the hard way) melt 250g dark chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water, then dip the biscuits in one by one and leave to set on greaseproof paper.

Right, I'm willing to admit that these completely surpassed my expectations. When the dough turned out a bright green colour I wanted to gag, but the shortbread is light and crumbly with a subtle taste of green tea, and the dark chocolate makes the whole thing feel a bit more like a treat. Well worth a go, if you have some Matcha lying around!
Have you ever baked with Matcha? What's your recipe of choice?

S xo.

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