If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.
~Japanese Proverb
click to enlarge
Clement over at À la Cuisine has chosen tea as the ingredient for this months Is My Blog Burning challenge.
I have wanted to try matcha since reading the posts by Santos and Keiko on its uses. A quick phone call to Ryoko's Mum in Japan and we have suggestions on the best type for baking.
The cookies are a little reminiscent of Soylent Green . Hard to believe the movie was set in 2022 - only another 17 years. I was perhaps a little heavy handed on the matcha. I was aiming for a softer pale green. As the tea doesn't add any significant taste to the cookies, less tea would give a better visual presentation.
I adapted a recipe that came with my GSD Kekespresse that is so old it has "Made in West Germany" on the box.
Ingredients for cookies: 300 grams flour, 100 grams powdered sugar,200 grams butter. I added 3 teaspoons of matcha and baked the biscuits for 15 minutes. Next time I will add only one teaspoon matcha and bake for 10 minutes.
You might think I'm a little confused and have included last months IMBB - Gelatin. But no, I had some gelatin sheets left over from the challenge and thought I might try making tea jelly. Using a ration of 1 gelatin sheet to 100 ml water and 20 grams tea the three teas are from left to right..
1. Lemon and ginger tea with honey.
2. Smoked black tea and brown sugar.
3. Matcha and maple syrup.
Of the three the smoked black tea and brown sugar was the most successful and I think would make an interesting combination alongside lemon ice cream.
Thank you Clement for hosting this month. Check out the entries over at À la Cuisine in a few days.
