Matcha Sugar Cookie Trees!

It’s almost Christmas time and you don’t know what cookies to leave out for Santa! What about some matcha Christmas trees?! They’re festive AND Santa can get a little energy boost from the matcha ;)

There are a few tried and true recipes I’ve found over the years and this rolled sugar cookie recipe is one of them. For these matcha trees I made a few substitutes.

Here is the recipe, I made three simple changes.

1) I halved this recipe because it makes A LOT of cookies. Even halving the recipe still gave me about 2 dozen and even more if I made the trees thinner

2) I used brown sugar instead of white sugar

3) I added in matcha powder gradually until I liked the green color of the dough

An important note about this recipe, it is much easier to roll the dough if you refrigerate the dough for several hours or overnight. Then, a little flour on your work surface makes it so much easier!

And that’s it! Super simple!

Matcha Cream Cups!

It’s Monday. Let’s face it, sometimes Monday’s aren’t that bad. It really comes down to your attitude about it but even on a good Monday there can be a sense of laziness. It’s Monday, the week is starting and your to do list is 3 miles long but you want a treat. You don’t want to work too hard for that treat though right?

I have the perfect treat for you!

I’m going to write this post in a really laid back, Monday way as well.

Think peanut butter cups, but instead of the peanut butter filling, you have matcha filling! My Mom’s birthday was earlier this month and she is obsessed with Matcha. Matcha to drink but also matcha in every form I can make it.

I wanted to make her a simple treat for her birthday so I decided to create these. They require only a few ingredients, no baking and not a lot of time either!

Here’s what you’ll need:

-Bittersweet or semi-sweet melting wafers

-Culinary grade matcha powder

-Heavy Whipping cream - You can probably substitute this for coconut cream as well for a non dairy solution

-Candied ginger

-Sugar to taste

-Small or large cupcake papers

** Please note that while these are the actual ingredients I used, these are affiliate links and if you purchase through them I will make a small commission. **

A few notes:

-When choosing bittersweet or semi-sweet, gauge your bitterness limits. I tried these cups with both and if you need sweet, go with the semi-sweet chips. While the bittersweet was still good, it is very strong. The Semi-sweet was my preferred because it still wasn’t super sweet but I think it complimented the cream better. If you do use bittersweet, I would choose larger cups so that you can put more filling!

-Choosing small or large cups. I created these cups both ways. Directly below you will see small matcha cups. The last photo on this post is a large matcha cup. The difference is that you’re going to have more room for the cream in the larger cups. The smaller cups are more chocolate than cream. Both are good but it depends on your preference!

-Heavy whipping cream. I used an entire pint which created SO.MUCH.CREAM. I just kept making these cups until it ran out but unless you plan on making a lot of these, I would start with a smaller amount of heavy cream.

Matcha Cream

-Start off by putting the heavy cream into your stand up mixer and turn it on low. While it mixes, chop up the crystallized ginger and sift your matcha powder.

-Increase the mixer to medium and then high as the cream starts to thicken. Add in your matcha, ginger and sugar to taste. I basically kept adding matcha until it was a satisfying green color.

-Once you get your desired mixture, set aside the cream.

Chocolate

-Use a double boiler or two pots stacked on top of each other to melt your chocolate. I always put a little bit of coconut oil in my chocolate wafers to help the consistency.

-I like to keep mixing the chocolate as it melts to make sure it stays smooth.

-Once chocolate is melted, keep the heat on low and get ready to assemble.

Make the Cups

-Put your desired cupcake paper size in a cupcake tin. The tin will help keep a little bit of structure when completing the cups.

-Pour 1/2 tbsp to 1 tablespoon chocolate into each cup, or enough to just cover the bottom well. Stick these in the freezer.

-Once the chocolate has hardened (should only take a few minutes), take the desired amount of matcha cream and put it in each cup.

-Cover the cups with chocolate

-Optionally - take a toothpick and make a little swirl with the matcha cream and chocolate.

-Put in the freezer to harden. Can be kept in the fridge afterwards.

-Once served, eat immediately for this delicious and melty goodness!

Below you will see the larger cups that are mostly matcha cream. These are so fluffy and soft. You can see the pieces of candied ginger that give these a bit of a kick among all the sweetness!

Matcha Marshmallow S'mores!

I was watching a feed feed video about making s’mores in the oven. I know, I know, it goes against everything that is wonderful about s’mores. Finding the perfect stick, getting your marshmallow too close to the coals so that is catches on fire by accident, and of course trying to find the perfect way to melt your chocolate slightly.

BUT, I don’t have access to a nice fire whenever I want but I do sometimes want s’mores so making them in the oven would be awesome. I then thought, how about matcha s’mores!

The most important thing is finding the right chocolate to go with the matcha marshamallow. I decided on this taza chocolate toffee with almond and sea salt because those flavors sound AMAZING with matcha.

My recipe below is for making the marshmallows but you will also need chocolate and graham crackers. Basically you want to put one side of the graham cracker on a baking sheet in the oven with a piece of chocolate and the marshmallow on top. Put the oven on high heat or use the broiler and dont walk away, make sure the marshmallow is soft enough to finish the sandwich !

A few notes about the recipe. You can certainly use corn syrup instead of cane sugar syrup and I have also seen recipes with honey but you’d need a few other ingredients to make that work. When mixing in the matcha, I put a range because I added little by little while it was mixing until I got the color I wanted. The color also darkens a bit after they dry out.

You might be thinking why put more sugar on top of something that is basically just made of sugar. I didn’t say this was the healthiest snack! The confectioner’s sugar on the bottom and top of the mixture make it so much easier to cut out squares. Without it, I think you just get a sticky mess.

I also wanted to mention that while I left these out uncovered for several hours, I covered them and put them in the fridge overnight and they were ok!

Here is the recipe I worked from!

If you like to order supplies online as I do sometimes, I have created a little list of supplies from amazon that you can take a look at here to get for this recipe or to spark ideas.

Amazon List

Culinary Matcha - Get Midori

Please note: if you purchase anything from these two links I will receive a small commission.

Matcha Waffles

I have a lot of matcha recipes planned for this summer! Mostly because summer is kind of go, go, go and matcha powder makes everything so easy!

I don’t generally eat a lot of starchy carbs except for rice but one of my all time favorite things is waffles!!! I remember back in high school, I requested that my birthday dinner be at eggspectations because they serve waffles all day and night - chocolate chip, of course.

Please note, This post and the photos within it contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the link, I may receive a commission at no extra charge to you.

I was browsing waffle recipes and saw this one that was simply blended and used oats. I based my recipe off of this one! I don’t have a large blender but a small ninja smoothie blender. What I did was split all the ingredients into two batches like shown above and placed my matcha powder in one of them so I get two waffles of each! Feel free to use matcha for all your waffles!

My batter felt a little thick even for waffles so I added a little bit more cashew milk (the milk I used) for each batch. I have one of those waffle irons that flips and has a timer. I put a range of time on my recipe because people like their waffles differently. I cooked mine for about 4 minutes and that made a softer waffle with a touch of crisp. If you like crispy, I would go for 5-6 minutes. Here is the waffle maker I have, we got it a few years ago at Christmas time :) p.s. Christmas is almost here. Yes, I’m linking my fav countdown for you!!!

The top waffle is the matcha one and at first you may not see the green due to the golden crust but just bust these babies open and you will reveal that beautiful green! I really like the way the matcha and oats compliment each other in this recipe. I chose not to use any additional sweetener, but note that because a banana is used, these aren’t totally savory. There is a hint of sweet.

If you don’t know which matcha to use, I suggest Midori by Matchaeologist. It is a great quality matcha for culinary purposes!

Top these waffles with whatever treats you like! I usually love to either have just butter or some butter and fruit on my waffles!

Do you have a favorite waffle topping?!

Matcha Miso Cookies!

Green Cookies?!

I often talk to people about matcha and many people want to consume matcha in other ways besides drinking it. I love the ceremony around whisking a warm bowl of matcha. But, there is also a place for matcha in our food. Many recipes include infusing which is pretty simple, but nothing is simpler than putting matcha in food and drinks because all the work has been done for you. Matcha being in powder form allows you to be able to incorporate it in everything more easily!

If you’ve read this blog and the recipes in it you probably can tell I’m a bit of a fan girl of Adriana over at A Cozy Kitchen. I one time made these cookies from her blog that were miso white chocolate chip cookies. They are amazing! When I was looking for a simple recipe to get me back into blogging and I thought that matcha would be such a delicious flavor with the miso!

I want you to check out her original recipe because this is such a cool concept for a cookie and she deserves all the credit! While you’re there make sure to check out some of her other delicious recipes!

Miso White Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe (since changed to chocolate chips)

I only changed a few things to get these cookies to be green!

-I used all brown sugar instead of white and brown

-I used bittersweet chocolate chips, only because I personally am not a fan of white chocolate. White chocolate chips do have a nice flavor though with the miso and matcha

-I added about 2 tablespoons of culinary grade matcha

One more note about these, Make sure to check them because the bottoms get browned very quickly, adding another layer of parchment paper helped too!

These cookies marry the delicious taste of miso and matcha but with a sweet harmony. You get the bite of matcha but you still feel like you’re having dessert! I think that if drinking matcha isn’t your favorite and you still want to have matcha in your life, this might be the recipe for you ;)

Tea Affogato!

I'll be honest, until recently I didn't know what affogato was :D I have been seeing it more and more as the weather had gotten hotter and finally looked it up. I thought, this can be done with tea and of course tea affogato was also a thing that people do so I wanted to give it a spin. 

Tea taste tests are fun because you can compare different flavors all next to each other. I decided to take the jasmine pearls, almond chai and sweet matcha from my sipsby box and pour them over one type of ice cream. 

It had been a long time since I made homemade ice cream and wanted to give it another try. You will see the recipe for cardamom ice cream at the bottom of this post and yay for people who don't eat dairy, it's made with cashew milk!

I chose the main flavor of the ice cream to be cardamom because for me, although cardamom has a strong taste it is more or less a neutral ice cream that I think would pair well with any of these teas. I the amount of cardamom I used in my recipe was a lot and the ice cream was very fragrant and lovely! 

A note about this ice cream. It's not a super creamy ice cream because it doesn't have cream. It's soft but also has more of an icy type texture. If you are able to find something like coconut cream or if you don't mind dairy any cream will work, adding cream to this recipe will make it more similar to ice cream you buy from the store. 

Despite the ice cream not being super creamy it's delicious and lower calorie and it worked great for affogato! I was originally concerned that because it wasn't creamy that when I poured the hot tea in it, it would totally melt but that wasn't the case. Yay!

In terms of the flavor pairings, here is how I ranked them: 

1. Almond chai
2. Matcha
3. Jasmine

The almond chai was my favorite because the nutty flavors of the chai paired so well with the cardamom. The chai was powerful enough to meet the flavor of the cardamom and it was definitely the one I finished first! The two flavors blended very well. 

The matcha used is called "sweet matcha" and is sweetened with fruit. The ice cream itself isn't super sweet so this combo definitely gives you the sweetest outcome :) 

The jasmine was 3rd but don't get it wrong, it was still yummy! The reason why this wasn't the top of my list is because generally the aroma of jasmine is so strong it isn't a favorite tea. I have started to enjoy jasmine a lot more but the aroma of the jasmine and the cardamom was too much for me. I will say that the jasmine tea is the combo where you could really taste the full flavor of the jasmine tea once mixed. The other two were a little more lost in the ice cream. 

Matcha Mint Julep + Matcha Giveaway!

Mondays can be kinda lame right???! Don't worry! I have a fun drink recipe and a giveaway for you! I used Meiko Matcha from Matchaeologist to create a Matcha Mint Julep! Enter the giveaway at the bottom of my post!

For this recipe I used crushed ice, bulleit bourbon, mint sprigs, brown sugar and matcha!

Place in your glass several mint sprigs, brown sugar to taste and one shot of bourbon. Muddle all these ingredients until well mixed. Add crushed ice on top of this mixture.

For the matcha, you can either brew it hot and let it cool down or brew with cool water. For a cocktail I prefer cool water. Make sure your matcha is sifted as it will integrate better into the water. Using the chashaku, sift 2 scoops of matcha into a glass or tea pot. Pour a little bit of cool water over it, enough to make a paste when whisked. 

Once you have a paste like consistency, pour a little more water and whisk until combined. You want the matcha to be strong in the drink so I suggest not using more than 1/4 cup -1/2 cup depending on how many drinks you're making. Pour water little by little and whisk and stop when mixture is smooth. 

Add matcha to the drink, stir and enjoy! You can win a can of meiko matcha, just enter below!

Teathoughts | Matchaeologist Giveaway!

Matcha Jasmine Rice

Green Rice! 

It's been a long time since I've made a recipe with matcha and this one popped into my head the other day. I have been making this garlic jasmine rice ever since I got the recipe in a blue apron box. The water that is added to the pot is a perfect opportunity to add a type of tea!

I've used matcha in cocktails and sweets so I've been curious how it would taste in a savory dish! With the earthy flavor matcha has, I figured it's a great flavor to add to a meal. I essentially keep the jasmine rice recipe the same but instead of using plain water, I use the same amount of brewed matcha. For this recipe I use Midori matcha from matchaeologist, this is a culinary matcha that is perfect for cooking!

The matcha link is an affiliate link. Please consider purchasing with my link as it will help me keep this blog going!   

A few things differ about this recipe than the one I've linked below. I specifically use sesame oil because I think it goes well with the other flavors and spices up the recipe a bit. You are welcome to use any other type of oil that you think might taste good! 

In terms of the matcha, the amount is up to you. I used 3 tablespoons of matcha and that was plenty. The rice came out a beautiful green color and the flavor was not cooked away. If you make more rice, feel free to add matcha and if you want to try this recipe but aren't a HUGE matcha lover I would suggest trying it with 1 or 2 tablespoons. 

Optionally, you can add tuxedo sesame seeds to the cooked rice for presentation but also because they are yummy! Depending on what you are pairing the rice with, you can also add soy sauce. I added soy sauce to try and liked the flavor combination. I think this rice can be eaten with almost anything but I feel as thought it would be most delicious paired with seafood!

Depending on the pot that you use, the cooking time I listed can vary. Make sure after you cover the lid that you turn the heat low. If it's not low you will most likely burn the bottom of the rice!

Another cooking note I wanted to mention was regarding the water/matcha. After about 14 minutes, I took the lid off and the rice seemed cooked but there was a little bit of matcha still on the top. Once I stirred the rice a bit in the pot, the matcha distributed itself around the rice. 

Matcha Pumpkin Pie

Green Pie.

UPDATED NOTES: I baked this recipe again recently and one way to stop it from cracking it seems is to crack the oven in the last 15 minutes to allow for the pie to slowly cool. It turned out great! If you do this, make sure to keep an eye on your pie!

I'm in full fall mode. I'm already thinking about the leaves changing, what costume to wear for Halloween and going to the pumpkin patch! This means that I'm also brainstorming about all the fall recipes! I want to start baking a bunch of pies and naturally I decided to start with pumpkin.  

This pumpkin pie has 2 twists. First, there isn't a regular crust! The crust is made from crushed up biscoff cookies and held together with melted butter...mmmm. 

The second twist is, AH it's green! This is kinda perfect for Halloween too don't ya think?! So why is a pumpkin pie green you might ask? Matcha matcha matcha!!! I recently restocked my matchaeologist matcha with their culinary grade Midori (*Affiliate link*). I got a huge tin so that I can bake all fall and winter.  

I love the taste of matcha and I think it goes well in a lot of things but I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how this would come out. Pumpkin is a strong flavor and is pumpkin pie really a pumpkin pie if it isn't that beautiful deep orange color? Oh well, this is a tea blog and we will bake with tea! 

I figured if all else fails, the biscoff crust would totally save the entire pie because they are so incredibly delicious! A quick note about the crust, I don't have a food processor currently so I crushed them up by hand and they were a little chunky. If you have a food processor I would use that so that they can get crushed well. That will make it easier for the butter to hold them together!

This pie has the same texture and consistency as pumpkin pie but it's green! As far as flavor, it is true to the spices you taste in a pumpkin pie but the flavor of matcha is definitely present! 

You can also control how green the pie gets. What I did was mix the condensed milk and pumpkin together and then added the tablespoons of matcha one at a time. One table spoon of matcha still makes the pie green but not as green as it is here. I hadn't added the eggs yet at this point you can also taste the pie to see if there is enough matcha flavor in it yet. 

Something I learned about baking time: Make sure that the pie is set all the way through! When the top of the pie set and there was no wiggling left I thought this was done. I'm not sure if the matcha had anything to do with it but I think there was a false sense of the pie being done so make sure to use a toothpick and check the middle of the pie as well.  

I think the matcha adds a nice rich and bold flavor to the pumpkin that will make a great addition to a fall party! 

Homemade Matcha Sprinkles

Tea Sprinkles.

One of my favorite food bloggers is Adrianna from A Cozy Kitchen and the other day she posted a recipe for homemade sprinkles! She made them these beautiful  colors and I got to excited at how simple the recipe was so I decided to make my own! 

When I look at a recipe that I want to incorporate tea into I look for butter, milk or water to infuse the tea into. This recipe only has a few tablespoons of water so I decided to use tea in powder form, aka MATCHA! wooohooo!

I used Adrianna's recipe as inspiration but cut it down quite a bit. It still made a lot of sprinkles!

I also refrigerated them overnight but I'm sure letting them set for several hours will be ok as well. I used Adrianna's advice and used a wilton #2 tip. The tip is small so the sprinkles are the perfect size but it's VERY tiring to pipe it all out!

I know that white chocolate and matcha is the common pairing but I honestly don't like white chocolate very much! I made this fudge frosting for a roasted blueberry cake and the matcha tasted SO GOOD !

Depending on what your piping skills are like, you could make all sorts of shapes with this mixture! 

Now, a word about the matcha usage. I used Matchaeologist (warning: affiliate link!) I used two tablespoons in the mixture and that gives them a very STRONG matcha flavor. If you want something more subtle use less and the color will also be lighter green. 

These are very elegant sprinkles that can be used for fun or a great gift!