Pierre Herme-Truffles au Chocolat au Lait et The Vert Matcha

Christmas is around the corner. The city gets prettier and prettier each coming year with Christmas decorations around every corner and in every department store there is Christmas songs playing. Christmas would not be Christmas without snow and we are blessed as snow is on the mountains.

It has been almost 4 months without posting and now is the time as never to post as it is Christmas time!!! I have been busy with work and school and now that I have finished my final mid-term I am free till the final exam. I recently bought a book, “Chocolate,” from my favourite pastry chef Pierre Herme and flipping through its mouth watering pages I stopped at some of his chocolate recipes. I have always loved the taste of pistachio and matcha but am curious how they would work together. IMHO, Pierre Herme used the flavour combination so it can’t be so bad heheheh. Off I went to make the recipe.

To make the ganache, I first measured the ingredients. Herme mentioned to combine the chocolate together with the matcha and then pour the hot cream on it the mixture; however, how will that melt (for lack of better word) the matcha? You would get granules of matcha. Instead, I combined the cream together with the matcha and heated it up. Once heated up pour onto the chocolate and whisk out from the middle. Cool and set the mixture when it is homogenized.

Pierre Hermes truffles called for roasted pistachios thankfully I had some in the fridge. The ganache was quite soft hence after I scooped it out I froze them for a firmer texture to be rolled into chocolate. Once they were more firm, they were rolled in melted chocolate twice and on the third time coated with roasted pistachios.

Viola

Ingredients:

200 g whole pistachios skinned

Milk Chocolate and Matcha Green Tea Ganache
95 g butter
610 g milk chocolate 45% cocoa ( I used Valhrona Jivara)
30 g matcha green tea power
600 g cream

Result: This is an interesting combination. The ganache is not that sweet and has a hint of bitterness. However when combined with the enrobbed chocolate it becomes sweet. To top it off one get the roasted pistachios flavouring with the matcha. I would suggest this recipe for matcha lovers.

Let the holiday baking begin.

Matcha Japanese Cheesecake

Hello all, I am back at baking again. Over the past few weeks, I was contemplating to go back to school for professional ungrading. I had narrowed it down to 2 schools and am thinking of applying back. The dread of studying terrifies me as I embark on this new journey with the future filled with uncertainty. To counteract this fear, I find myself baking again to escape the decision he he.

I had some cream cheese and matcha left over from previous baking sessions thus decided to bake a japanese matcha cheesecake.

Ingredients:

165 ml Milk
165 g Cream Cheese
40 g butter
4 piece egg yolks
36 g cake and pastry flour
14 g starch
4 g matcha
4 piece egg white
90 g sugar

This recipe is a good one as there is a pronounced matcha taste in the cake. It is light and smooth as it is a japanese cheesecake and is not too sweet. I found that I had overbeaten the egg whites resulting in it not being sponge all the way through but will remedy it for my next baking adventure. Hopefully there is some outcome of my decision to go back to school and move forward with that decision.

J’adore Eclairs

Booo another overcast weekend in Vancouver and no doubt with rain coming. I have been baking lots lately on an certain pastry. Continuously trying and retrying, researching and researching some more, I finally have some luck with this elusive pastry. Sssssshhhhhh what is this pastry? A pastry that is a welcomed addition to most pastry shops in Vancouver. When done properly they are wonderfully light as air on the outside and usually encased with a perfect creamy middle. What is this pastry? The eclair of course. That is right I love making and eating cream puffs.

Comprehensive Research and Tips:
Tips can be found here as well.
-bread flour is considered the better choice when making eclairs because it has more proteins in it allowing it to hold its from when baking.
-on a simmer at medium heat mix milk/water and butter until combined and melted. Remove from heat and then add the flour. To avoid lumps sift the flour, sugar and salt.
-cook the dough until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pot and forms a ball
-you want to get as much moisture out of the flour dough so cook the dough and stir until you see a film at the bottom of the pot
–Keller mentioned to further mix the dough for another 30 seconds to evaporate as much moisture once off the heat
-add eggs to the choux only when the dough has cooled as the heat will cook the eggs. When adding the eggs, in the beginning, it will look like scrambled eggs but the dough will come together
–pastry school instructor instructed to fold the eggs into the mixture to create pockets of air
-the dough should be soft and paste like and not runny. If it is too wet, when baking, the eclair will not rise properly, spread out and remain flat thus at your discretion add the eggs one at a time and check the consistency of the dough. It may need more eggs or less eggs.
-the dough is ready when you wet a finger and run it through the dough and it forms a soft through that peaks but holds its shape

Pipping
-pipe at 45 degree angle and maintain pressure through out the pipping

-Once pipped spray water on the choux pastry to create steam. Steam helps the choux to rise
–Aoki suggested instead of putting egg wash on the choux paste, sift icing sugar on the eclair for an extra crunch
Baking
-depending on the caliber of your oven bake at a high temperature to puff them up and gradually lower the temperature to dry them out. Both Herme and Keller suggested around the 375 to 390 degree ranges.
-the choux must be thoroughly baked, if the sides of the walls are moist, when removed from oven, the steam will condense back into water and the still-wet walls will recoil. This will cause the choux pastry to collapse/ and flattened itself. To avoid this mishap use a toothpick or knife and make a incision in the eclairs so they can dry out properly.

Filling
The eclair is quite versatile as it can take on all sorts of fillings but for me I was always fascinated by Sadaharu Aoki’s creations especially his matcha eclair. Matcha eclair it is.

Voila

Kellers Pate a Choux
All purpose flour ( I used bread flour) 175 g
Granulated sugar 33 g
Water 240 g ( I used combination of milk and water at 1/2 each)
Unsalted Butter 120 g
Salt 2.5 g
Eggs 250 g ( I used 6 eggs and half recipe at 3 eggs)

Matcha Pastry Cream
500 ml Milk
100 g sugar (increase sugar to your taste as the matcha is bitter)
40 g corn starch
3 g matcha
2 piece egg yolks
.5 piece vanilla bean

Result: The choux pastry was light and airy. They had risen quite nicely and made it able to pipe the pastry cream into it. My research and findings finally paid off. The Matcha had a strong taste and complimented the whipped cream. Thank You for all the tips from fellow bakers!!!!

Matcha Honey Buns with Chestnut Cream

What a drag, its raining again in Vancouver. With all this rain and gloomy weather, I decided to bake again to warm up the house and my tummy :0. Yummmmm….bread gain. Nothing beats the aromas of warm bread in the household. One can’t go wrong when making bread and since I have a few packages of matcha and some freshly made chesnut cream, I decided to be adventurous and make some mathca honey with chestnut cream buns.

To make the buns, made a poolish. This consisted of warming up some milk and adding some sugar, 1/2 cup of the flour and yeast as a starter. Proof the poolish for about 1/2 an hour. After the poolish has proofed a bit, I added remaining ingredients to it. The remaining ingredients consisted of the remaining flour, sugar, green tea power, butter, milk powder, egg and honey. Once they are mixed together I began to knead the dough. Bare in mind, the recipe is quite moist thus add more flour if need be. I actually added another 1 1/2 cups of flour to 2 cups for the dough to be manageable. Thus use discretion. Once the dough kneaded enough and less sticky to the hands, proof the dough for 1 hour.

Once proofed punch down the dough. Knead again for about 5 minutes and divide the dough into 8 pieces. One could divide the dough into 10 pieces for smaller buns. Pat the dough flat and spoon the chestnut cream in. Squeeze the edges to seal the cream inside the dough after which roll them into balls.

Decorate with black and white sesames

Proof the buns for another 30-45 minutes until double in size.

Bake at 350F for 20 minutes. Once done brush with egg glaze.

Matcha Honey Buns

250 g bread flour
3 g green tea powder
8 g yeast
130 g water
20 g fresh milk (I used all milk)
10 g butter
10 g milk powder
1 egg
40 g honey

This recipe is a keeper. The chestnut cream played well with the matcha. As a suggestion for next time, dougle the sugar, egg, honey, matcha and milk powder in relation to the extra flour used.

Happy Bread Making.

Green Tea Cakes-Curley

Baking time1!! I usually switch to seasonal fruits this time of year but despite the warm weather Vancouverites have been getting, the farms are not opned yet as the fruits aren’t optimal. As a result, I decided to make something that can be prepared anytime of the year. Intending to make something from Curley, I flipped through his book. The green tea cake captured me eyes. These are similar to financiers as it uses a beurre noisette or browned butter, almonds, and hazelnuts. Like mentioned the beurre noisette gives off a nutty and caramel scent when done properly.

To make the cakes, first brown the butter and cool it. While the butter is cooling, whip the eggs with the sugar until soft peaks form. Add the flour, nuts and matcha. Mix until smooth and then add the butter.  Rest in fridge for 15-30 minutes then use a pipping bag to pipe out into silicone moulds.

Curley noted to leave the batter in the fridge for at least 30 minutes prior to baking. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Voila

Green Tea Cakes
125 g unsalted butter
115 g egg whites approx 4 eggs
125 g sugar ( I used 100 g berry sugar)
115 g ground almonds
15 g hazelnuts ( I used coconut)
5 g matcha powder
40 g plain flour ( I use 60 g cake and pastry flour)

When baked, the cakes had a touch of sweetness and had a nice matcha taste coupled with hints of coconut. It is definitely a keeper. As an alternative one can add/sprinkle black and white sesame on top for crunch.

Green Tea Azuki Cake

After a break, I am back baking. This time it is a Green Tea Azuki Cake. I had first tried it at Chicco, a Japanese bakery, on Robson St. I really liked the combination of red beans and green tea flavours together. Apparently there are other bakers that like the combination of the two flavours as well as I have found inspiration on the internet. Here is my version.

To make the cake, I used a chiffon cake. The key to making this cake and eliminating undissolved matcha powder was to make a paste first. This was accomplished by warming some milk, adding the matcha powder and whisking it until the powder dissolves. Once the milk mixture becomes green from the matcha and without flecks of matcha, add it to the cake mixture. The paste method will help in matcha maintain its green colour even during baking. Next I whip the egg whites and folded it into the cake batter and baked it at 350 for approx 20 minutes until done.

To make the azuki filling, I bought some azuki paste and folded in some whipped cream. The mixture was then spread to the matcha layers. Assembly was simple, I had opted to do a simple whipped cream decoration.

Ingredients

Swans Caking Flour
Berry Sugar
Matcha Powder
Eggs
Milk
Oil
Azuki Bean Paste

Enjoy!!!!

Matcha Sable Cookies

Finally back writing. After a month’s break, I finally got time to do some baking. Matcha Cookies this time.

Match Sable Cookies
240 g cake flour
15 g matcha powder
150 g butter
90 g icing sugar
2 egg yolks

Tips:
-instead of rolling into a tube of cookies, I read a tip from Sadaharu Aoki. Use a 2 1/2 inch round cutter and cut out the cookies. The cookies will be more uniform in size and shape.

The matcha cookies turned out to a beautiful green after baking. I chose to use the biscuit way in which the butter and flour were mixed into a sand like texture and then added the rest of the ingredients. As a tip for matcha, one should use the matcha soon after opening as it tends to oxidize and as a result the colour will not be as vivid. These cookies will make a lovely snack for a friends birthday.

Honey Green Tea Bun

Bread again!!! I just love the aroma of fresh baked bread. Crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. It has been raining for a few days now and as the temperature drops, my solution was to stay at home and drink warm tea while flipping through recipe books.

I recently found a recipe from a Japanese bread cook book.  Unlike North American culture where the focus was  on sugar, the orients focuses less on sugar. The buns I made were Honey Green Tea bun and yummy. : )

Let the dough proof for about 2 hours or doubled in size. Punch down, knead and roll out the dough.  Once the dough  has been kneaded, separate into 10 pieces of dough. As a twist to this recipe,I added some azuki bean paste and black sesame to the buns. Allow the buns to proof a bit more until it reaches 1 1/2 in size.  Bake take at 350F for 25 minutes. Glaze with egg and honey wash.

Honey Green Tea Bun

250 bread flour (I used all purpose
3 g green tea powder
8 g yeast (I choose active yeast)
130 g water ( I substituted for milk)
10 g milk
10 g butter
10 g milk powder
20 g sugar
40 g honey
*Filling: (auzuki bean paste, black sesame paste or white sesame paste) optional

Results, the buns were perfect, very soft and rich inside. The black sesame paste and azuki paste really stood out and complimented the flavour and texture of the bun., One could have it for breakfast and could be accompanied by fresh fruit, tea or milk.  Definitely a keeper.

Enjoy the Fall weather, and watch the trees turn from green, to yellow, to red and orange; quite a sight to see!!!

Green Tea and Azuki Bean Mousse- Curley

Yippee!!! Its still warm and sunny. My corn patch was finally flourishing and filled with baby corns. Nothing was sweeter than to see your own creation blossoming in the warm summer sky. To make it sweeter, my order for a baking book came. I immediately flipped through the pages and stopped on the green tea azuki mousse cake. I had always wanted to learn to make a green tea azuki mousse cake so now was the best time ever 🙂

I first made the cake and then worked on the filling. The azuki mousse came first. Blossom the gelatin in cold water and whipped the cream first. Warm up the azuki paste so it became spreadable or easily whipped up. By the time the azuki cream warmed up, add the blossomed gelatin. Cool the mixture prior to adding the whipped cream as you want the mixture smooth not grainy in appearance. Once the azuki mixture/cream mixture is smooth and incorporated, spoon the mixture into silicon mould.

The green tea mouse came next. The methodology was similar to a custard when incorporating in the ingredients. Though similar, let the tea and the cream steep for approx 1 hour first

Keys

Separate the eggs and egg white
Combine the matcha and water. Keep mixing the matcha powder with the water until paste like. Lumps are very unappealing.
Have the chocolate in a bowl and keep aside until the custard is ready. Pour hot custard to the white chocolate. Cool set aside.
Use this time to whip up the cream and then fold in the cooled custard

Assembly:
1. Place the cake at the bottom
2. Pipe in the mousse
3. Add a layer of cake on top of the mousse
4. Spread the Azuki/red been paste
5. Place the azuki mousse on top.
6. Pipe the mousse to the top and cool in fridge prior to making the glaze.

7. When the cake has coolded sufficiently, pour the glaze over the mousse cake and decorate lightly.

Green Tea Mousse(adapted from William Curley)

290 ml whip cream
10 g green tea leaves
155 white chocolate
3g match powder (Could be 3-5 depending if you want a strong matcha taste
5 ml water
3 g gelatin
35 g egg yolks
10g caster sugar.***

***35 egg yolks, 10 caster sugar used to make the sugar/yolk mixture light in colour.

I found this cake superb especially the fact it had red bean mousse in it. It was quite light as the green tea mousse toned down the sweetness. While it may be taxing on time, the results are delicious. A keeper to whom loves matcha tea and red bean dessert. Bon Appetit.

Sadaharu Aoki-Financier Au Matcha Sale

I have been eyeing this pastry chef for a while now. According to Paris Pastries Blog, Aoki was one of the top pastisseries in Paris. Sadly to say, the net only had a few of his recipes posted; nevertheless, now I am the proud owner of his magazine and recipes.

Having a profound fondness of financiers, I tried Aoki’s Financier au Matcha Sale found from Travellingfoodies. To make the financiers, I first browned the butter in the saucepan and toasted some almonds to ground. Next I measured the flour and whipped up the egg whites and sugar. The flour was then sifted into the egg white/sugar mixture. To dissolve the matcha, I combined the matcha with the browned butter. When the flour, egg white and sugar mixture was completely emulsified, the toasted ground almond meal along with the matcha/ butter was added.

Note:
Unlike Herme’s and Laduree’s financiers, the recipe had no baking powder; with that in mind, the egg whites and sugar were beat to med-stiffness. Remember to fold. Because matcha oxidizes during baking, a trick I learned was to create a paste first to retain the beautiful green colour. I chose the browned butter. Browned butter was just basically melting the butter in a sauce pan until it caramelizes in colour. It imparted a nutty caramelized flavour to the pastry.

To enhance and contrast the appearance, black and white sesames were toasted and sprinkled on top. Baked the financiers at 350F for about 20 minutes.

Sadaharu Aoki’s Financier Au Matcha Sale (Recipe found here)

Egg White 90 g
Caster Sugar 100 g
Trimoline 10 g (I opted out, it’s invert sugar)
buerre noisette-90 g
50 g Almond powder (I toasted the almonds and ground them)
10 Hazelnut powder (I opted out this time)
30 g Cake flour (I used all purpose)
Matcha powder 4 g
Black sesame
White sesame
Salt

When done, the financiers maintained their gorgeous green colour. I found that there was good matcha taste but found it a bit strong hence will tweak it. Overall, I found the recipe to be a keeper. Not to sweet but with a nice matcha kick. As for the next time, I will try hazelnuts. Enjoy these financiers.