Last night I was trying to arrange my baking ingredients when I found a used pack of Japanese green tea leaves. I bought it last month because I wanted to practice making a green tea cake for my boyfriends birthday (hopefully he gets to come home during that time). In the Japanese store, I asked the storekeeper if they had Matcha, which was more commonly used for confectioneries; unfortunately they had none, so I got the pack of Sencha tea leaves instead.
Japanese green tea in general has a delicate and detailed art of harnessing tea leaves. It's called by different names depending on how it's grown, processed and prepared. Two of them are the ones I mentioned above. Matcha is select leaves grown in a shade, dried flat and finely milled. Sencha is free dried leaves, rolled and then roasted. For detailed descriptions of Japanese green tea, click here.
I used the Sencha tea in cupcakes before that used steeped tea in hot water instead of powder. It was pleasantly refreshing but was a bit dense because of the number of eggs that the batter required. It tasted a bit egg-y, but still, it was a well-appreciated treat by everyone; it had just the right sweetness with a hint of bitterness. Hopefully I'll be able to make a lighter cake batter next time, I doubt the recipe I had would bake well as a full sized cake because of its density.
I wanted to give the green tea I had another form, cupcakes seemed to be bit heavy and needed to be consumed immediately. I thought, what if I made cookies? But I was stumped for a minute, I only had Sencha tea leaves. Matcha suits cookies since it's powdered form, cookies often require less liquid. What now?
Then my usual curious self took the coffee grinder attachment of our blender, spooned in a couple of tablespoon of tea leaves and set the speed on liquify. And yey! I got grounded tea leaves, though not that fine as the Matcha, but I think it would work fine as a substitute.
So I got going with a simple shortbread cookie recipe from the Joy of Baking site and added a twist to it. Here's the result:
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| Half dipped with chocolate to accent the green tea flavor. |
CHOCOLATE DIPPED SENCHA COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
Shortbread Cookie (makes about 1 dozen medium-sized cookies):1 stick salted butter (room temp)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour
1 scant tsp vanilla
1-2 tbsp of grounded Sencha
Chocolate Dip:
100 grams of semi-sweet chocolate
PROCEDURE
*make cookie dough the night before; shortbread cookie dough keeps for a week if frozen.
1. Cream butter. Add in powdered sugar and beat until smooth for about 2 minutes.
2. Beat in vanilla and ground Sencha.
3. Stir in flour until incorporated. Flatten dough into disk shape, double wrap in plastic wrap and paper towels; then store in the freezer overnight.
4. 15 minutes prior to rolling out the dough, take it out of the freezer to thaw in room temp. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and lightly flour baking sheets.
5. Roll out the dough into 1/4 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface with a rolling pin. Cut desired shape and place on cookie sheets.
6. Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Let cool.
7. Melt chocolate in a small heat-proof bowl over hot water. Dip cookies halfway then place on wax paper lined line baking sheet. Place in the refrigerator for an hour or until the chocolate hardens.
My sister thought it was an interesting flavor and worked well with coffee. She also said that she's going to franchise Starbucks in a soon to open mall here in Davao and feature what I've been baking. She's kidding of course. :)
As I am writing this, the TV is tuned in to CNN's coverage of the recent Japan earthquake and the tsunami threats to countries facing the Pacific Ocean, including the Philippines, specifically my province Davao del Sur. I thought that it was quite a strange coincidence that I was blogging about something Japanese. Hmmm... Freaked out much? On a serious note: Lord, for whatever reason this has happened, may we come to accept it and learn from it. We lift this up to You. Amen.
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