13 Matcha treats to get you through all your holiday baking

Few things scream the holidays more than the sweet scent of fresh baking wafting through your kitchen. Baked treats and Christmas go hand in hand, but there’s one thing that could make it better — matcha.

In my house, Christmas dinner features turkey and stuffing next to sticky rice and curry. It only seems fair to make dessert an Asian fusion course as well, with a matcha twist on tradition.

But how many things could you possibly make out of matcha, you ask? I’m here to prove it’s anything and everything. 

We’re talking about cookies, brownies, muffins, pies, cheesecakes, donuts, rice krispies, croissants, and more. The holidays are the perfect excuse to eat, and I have every intention of following through.

We’ve sourced some of our favourite recipes from Subtle Asian Cooking and a few food blogs to give you the full breadth of the matcha experience. So whether you’re baking for yourself or your loved ones, here’s a recipe starter kit to get you hooked on that tasty green earthy goodness that, for some of us, is a way of life. 

1. Matcha Mochi Muffins and Cupcakes

2. Thai Tea, Ube, and Matcha Custard Madeleines

THAI TEA/ UBE/ GREEN TEA [18-20 TOTAL MADELEINES]:

• 113 g unsalted butter (stick) + some melted butter for coating pan
• 113 g sugar
• 120 g flour (sifted)
• pinch of salt
• 5 g baking powder
• 2 large eggs (room temp)
• 15 g milk
• For green tea: 2.5 g matcha powder
• For ube: 2.5 g ube extract
• For Thai tea: 2.5 g thai tea powder (you could steep thai tea mix in the milk instead)

Melt butter. Whisk eggs and milk and seperately, mix sugar, flour, salt, and baking powder. Fold wet and dry ingredients. Fold butter in. Separate into three bowls (~150g per bowl) and add and fold in either matcha, ube, or Thai tea flavorings. Cool batters in the fridge for ~1 hr (or 30 min freezer) and then fill a butter coated pan (I use a pastry brush with melted butter) with batters. I add in 25g per madeleine (I use a piping bag). Bake at 375F/190C for 11 min.

CUSTARD: THAI TEA/UBE/GREEN TEA:

• 1 large egg yolk
• 9 g corn starch
• 85 g milk
• 25 g sugar
• ~1ish gram of either Thai tea powder, ube extract, or matcha powder

Combine egg yolk and corn starch. In a sauce pan, combine milk and sugar and bring to boil. While whisking egg yolks constantly, pour milk/sugar mixture. This is tempering the yolks so they won’t scramble. Return mixture to sauce pan on high heat. Whisk constantly and once the mixture becomes custard like (will coat whisk or spatula), remove from heat. Sieve if there are lumps. Divide custard and add respective flavorings.

FILLING:

If you’re making the custard and filling the madeleines, you need to hollow them out. Doing when the madeleines are still warm makes it easier. I used a chopstick for these. Just stab the bottom and swirl the chopstick around, making sure to not crack the entry point of cookie itself. Pipe in the custard. Enjoy.

3. Matcha Croissants

YIELDS: 16 REGULAR CROISSANTS

INGREDIENTS:

MATCHA CROISSANT DOUGH

• 10 grams active dry yeast (in 150 grams warm water)
• 150 grams whole milk
• 500 grams AP flour/baker/bread flour
• 15 grams matcha powder
• 50 grams sugar
• 10 grams salt
• 250 grams unsalted high-quality butter (Plugra) + 100 grams matcha (Add 2 Tbsp of AP flour if using grocery store butter)
• Green gel dye (if you want a more green color. Just matcha itself is not vibrant green)
• Chocolate bar specific for croissants (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)

BLACK SESAME PASTE (FOR CRAQUELIN)

• 20 grams black sesame seeds
• 20 grams honey

BLACK SESAME CRAQUELIN

• 90 grams unsalted butter, cubed, at RT
• 75 grams sugar
• 25 grams light brown sugar
• 100 grams AP flour
• Pinch of salt
• All of the black sesame paste

EGG WASH

• 1 egg + 50 grams milk

INSTRUCTIONS:

BLACK SESAME PASTE

1. Toast black sesame seeds for 30 seconds until fragrant
2. Pour sesame seeds into food processor and pulse until no large pieces left (~ 1 minute)
3. Add in the honey and pulse for another minute.

BLACK SESAME CRAQUELIN

1. Mix all the ingredients in a mixer together using a paddle.
2. Mixture will be very soft, put it inbetween two parchment sheets and flatten until 1/4” thick. Freeze.

MATCHA CROISSANT DOUGH

1. Put water and yeast together, set aside for a few minutes (will see bubbles/foam).
2. Combine proof yeast mixture and milk into the mixer. Add in two drops of green dye.
3. Mix flour, matcha, sugar, and salt. Add gradually to the mixer.
4. In a stand mixer with a dough hook, mix at speed one for five minutes. Then increase the speed to two and mix for five minutes.
5. Take dough out and cover with plastic wrap completely & loosely. Place it in a large plastic zip bag and seal tightly. Leave at RT for 30 minutes. (Or alternatively for better flavor development, leave dough overnight in the fridge. Then before rolling out dough, leave at RT for 30 minutes).
6. Meanwhile, put the butter & matcha into an empty mixer and mix on high speed until you get a smooth consistency with no lumps. Put the butter into a plastic wrap and cover completely. Mold the butter into a 5” by 6” rectangle (1” height). Slap the air out of the butter block by dropping it onto the table. Put the butter into the freezer to chill.
7. Take the dough and roll it out until 10” x 16” rectangle.
8. Put the butter in the center of the dough, and then fold the left hand over the farthest edge of the butter. Then fold the right side of the butter to cover the dough completely.
9. Brush off the excess flour from the dough. Rotate 90 degrees and then press down into a 10” by 16” rectangle, avoiding to push the butter.
10. Fold left and right sides in towards the center again. This counts as one turn. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and then put it into the fridge to chill for 30 minutes. Repeat the process 3 more times, each time rolling it into a 10” by 16” rectangle before folding.
11. Cut the dough into 4 pieces, rolling each into a 7” by 18” rectangle. Keep the other pieces in the fridge while working with the rest. Mark the dough every 4 inches and then cut it into 4 full triangles. (Or into rectangles if making chocolate rolls)
12. Cut a triangle in the center of the base, roll upwards towards the tip. (Or put chocolate in a line and roll upwards for chocolate rolls).
13. Put croissants into a warm oven for 29C for 2 hours. Spray with water from time to time. (Very important to allow to proof and get soft, fluffy rolls!!)
14. To make the egg wash, use a soft brush, and then brush the egg wash onto the croissants.
15. Top with the black sesame craquelin.
16. Turn oven up to 350C, bake for 25 minutes. Make sure the croissants are well spread out as the craquelin will melt and ooze.

4. Matcha Strawberry Daifuku

5. Matcha White Chocolate Cookies

6. Matcha Mochi Donuts

7. No-Bake Matcha Cheesecake

8. Matcha Tiramisu

9. Matcha Rice Krispies

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Melt 1/4 cup of butter and a bag of mini marshmallows in a large pot. Add big spoonfuls of matcha spread (if you haven’t tried o’sulloc’s green tea milk spread, you haven’t lived) into the butter marshmallow mixture.
2. Stir until it looks like green slime. Then pour 6 cups of crispy rice cereal.
3. Mix well (try to fold the cereal into the matcha marshmallow mixture from the bottom to the top).
4. Dump into a buttered baking dish (be sure not to pack it in too tightly — you don’t want rice krispie bricks).
5. Let cool. Cut. Eat.

10. Matcha Cheesecake Brownie

11. Matcha Banana Bread

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp matcha green tea powder
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp bicarb soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream (a heaping cup of it)
• 4 very ripe bananas, mashed (medium-large sized ones)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease or spray a 9 inch loaf pan, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil and sugars. Add the eggs, one at a time and vanilla and whisk until it becomes a smooth mixture.
3. Add the bicarb soda, salt and matcha powder into the mixture then gradually add the flour, stir to mix until just combined.
4. Fold in the bananas and sour cream.Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
5. Cool until warm before serving.

12. Vegan Matcha Pancakes

INGREDIENTS:

PANCAKES

• 2 cups oat flour (I blended my own using rolled oats)
• 2 cups oat milk (I blended 2 cups of water and half a cup of rolled oats)
• 1 Flax egg (1 Tablespoon of ground flax seeds, 3 table spoons of water)
• 1 Teaspoon of matcha
• 1 Teaspoon of baking powder

TOPPINGS

• Coarsely chopped nuts
• Cacao nibs
• Dark chocolate
• Matcha

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. First, combine all the dry ingredients and create a well in the centre to add the wet ingredients.
2. Mix until well combined, I found my mixture was slightly lumpy, so I used a blender to mix the batter.
3. Allow for mixture to firm up in the fridge for 10 minutes.
4. Using a nonstick pan on medium heat, add the batter and wait for the centre to show bubbles and the edges should be cooked, proceed to flip the pancake and repeat this step with the remaining batter.
5. To decorate, I sprinkled on chopped nuts, cacao nibs. I melted some dark chocolate to drizzle over the top and I dusted the pancakes with matcha.

13. Matcha Custard Pie