Have you ever seen the very entertaining "Paul Hollywood in Japan" series?
Yes, that Paul Hollywood , the celebrity chef and baker. He goes to Japan to sample the food culture and entertain us with a few quirky features of Japanese life. Anyway, I was interested to see how surprised he was by the quantity and quality of Japanese bakeries. But I'd forgotten that most people react like that when they're in Japan for the first time - they just don't expect to find a thriving Western style food industry.
In fact, bread and cake making was introduced by the Portugese way back in the 1600s - apparently the Portugese at that time even introduced the "castella" (a very moist sweetened sponge cake) which probably ranks today as Japan's all-time favourite cake. Nowadays, cake baking is as popular in Japan as it is here in the UK - the cakes are subtly different, less sweet and made with different ingredients.
One perennial favorite in Japan is the muffin made with matcha powder (green tea powder) and I've put together an easy recipe for you to make these in your own home. In Japan, you'd normally find adzuki beans used to sweeten these muffins but I know adzuki isn't everyone's cup of tea, so instead I use raisins as a sweetener. There's no butter in this recipe, I use vegetable oil instead - the result is a very soft, spongy green tea muffin.
These are a cinch to make and there's nothing better IMO than a fresh from the oven matcha muffin for tea served with a nice cup of earl grey. The key is to use a good quality matcha powder so that you get a real green tea flavour when you bake.
Want to make some matcha muffins? You can find the written recipe just below and the Youtube tutorial by clicking Matcha Muffins or scroll to the bottom of the page.
Happy baking! Kurumi XXXX.
For another matcha green tea dessert recipe, why not try my Baked Matcha Cheesecake? You can find the link to the recipe by clicking Baked Matcha Cheesecake.
Matcha Muffins
ingredients:
(makes 8 muffins)
1 egg
70ml veg oil
100ml milk
150g self raising flour, sieved
1 tsp baking powder
90g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp matcha powder
60g dried raisins
8 small paper cups for the muffins
how to:
break the egg into a bowl, add the veg oil and whisk, then add the milk and whisk again
in another bowl, add the self raising flour, baking powder, sugar, salt & matcha powder and mix well
gently add the flour mixture to the egg mixture in a bowl and mix lightly, then add the raisins and mix again
heat the oven to 180’C
place your paper muffin cup in a tray and either spoon or pipe the misture equally into the cups
bake the muffins for 13-15 mins, test with a skewer before removing from the oven
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