TWD: Matcha Coconut Madeleines

There's something very special about madeleines, so I was really happy that this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was traditional madeleines, chosen by Tara of Smells Like Home. I'm swamped with studying for finals right now but I couldn't resist making them. I adore madeleines and they're a really easy baked good. I chose to do a matcha coconut variation, and they were quite yummy. My favourite flavour is still Earl Grey, but I always want to try out new combinations. And I have to just say that madeleines are really best within a few hours of making them so you get to enjoy their slightly crispy edges and soft warm centers.

As for the signature "hump" that the madeleine is supposed to have - some of mine did and some didn't despite refrigeration of the batter for several hours. Doesn't bother me though because they were still addictively delicious. And I know that some people have problems with them sticking to the pans - I find that if I let mine cool for a few minutes in the pan, they come out much easier. And it seems impossible for me to make madeleines without those tunnels, though I don't feel like I'm overmixing. One thing about Dorie's recipe that's different from other madeleine recipes I've made was that she has you beat the eggs and sugar together for 3 minutes. I'm used to just stirring them together by hand until mixed.

Other things I've baked with tea:
Matcha Cupcakes
Earl Grey White Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Earl Grey Tea Shortbread
Honey Earl Grey Madeleines

Matcha Coconut Madeleines*
Adapted from Baking: From My Home To Yours

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
½ cup sugar
1-2 tbsp matcha**
1/3 cup dried unsweetened coconut
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, matcha and coconut.

Working with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together on medium-high speed until pale, thick and light, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. With a rubber spatula, very gently fold in the dry ingredients, followed by the melted butter. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the batter and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours, or for up to 2 days. This long chill period will help the batter form the hump that is characteristic of madeleines. (For convenience, you can spoon the batter into the madeleine molds, cover and refrigerate, then bake the cookies directly from the fridge; see below for instructions on prepping the pans.)

GETTING READY TO BAKE: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400F. Butter 12 full-size madeleine molds, or up to 36 mini madeleine molds, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Or, if you have a nonstick pan (or pans), give it a light coating of vegetable cooking spray. If you have a silicone pan, no prep is needed. Place the pan(s) on a baking sheet.

Spoon the batter into the molds, filling each one 3/4 full. Don't worry about spreading the batter evenly, the oven's heat will take care of that. Bake large madeleines for 11 to 13 minutes, and minis for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are golden and the tops spring back when touched. Remove the pan(s) from the oven and release the madeleines from the molds by rapping the edge of the pan against the counter. Gently pry any recalcitrant madeleines from the pan using your fingers or a butter knife. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to just warm or to room temperature.

If you are making minis and have more batter, bake the next batch(es), making certain that you cool, then properly prepare the pan(s) before baking.

Makes 12 large or 36 mini cookies.***

Storing: Although the batter can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, the madeleines should be eaten soon after they are made. You can keep them overnight in a sealed container, but they really are better on day 1. If you must store them, wrap them airtight and freeze them; they'll keep for up to 2 months.

*To make the traditional madeleines, add the zest of one lemon to the sugar (rubbing the lemon zest and sugar between your fingers until moist and fragrant.) Omit the coconut and matcha.
**I used 1 tbsp and it gave the madeleines a very light matcha flavour so next time I'll add 2 tbsp.
***With my modification of the recipe, it made 15 large madeleines.

My note: You can easily modify this recipe to make any flavour you like. I like adding 4 oz of melted chocolate to the batter.

Earl Grey White Chocolate Chunk Muffins

I've been dreaming of these decadent muffins for quite some time - Earl Grey white chocolate sour cream based muffins. I've mentioned before how I have this Earl Grey obsession. I want to try it in everything! (Next an Earl Grey creme brulee, mmm.)

Once the muffins were baked I was so very eager to try one. It didn't taste quite like the lemon poppy seed muffins that uses the same base. I know the flavours are totally different but something was still not the same. I thought it might just be that I replaced some of the all purpose flour with whole wheat. But then my boyfriend tried them and he immediately picked up on it - I forgot to add the sugar. Durr. They were still good though and the white chocolate helped to make up for the missing sugar. I have to make these again though, with the sugar, to truly satisfy my craving.

You might also like:
Orange Berry Muffins
Snickerdoodle Muffins
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Scones
Earl Grey Madeleines

Earl Grey White Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours

2/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground Earl Grey tea (or more if you dare)
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup white chocolate chunks

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ground Earl Grey tea. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don't worry about being thorough - a few lumps are better than over mixing the batter. Stir in the white chocolate chunks. Divide the batter evenly among the muffins cups.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Earl Grey Tea Shortbread

Shortbread has always been one of my favourite kind of cookies. My grandma's shortbread that we all fight over, to be specific. I think I was probably initimidated by making shortbread for this reason. How could I possibly make shortbread good enough to compare?

A couple of Christmases ago, I tried this earl grey cookie recipe for the first time, not realizing it was basically a shortbread cookie (good thing!) It was such a perfect little cookie that I knew I'd be making it again, though it did take me a year and a half. My coworker was leaving, and I had always talked about these earl grey cookies, so I had to make her some before she was gone. I decided to split the batter in two and do half a batch of earl grey orange cookies and the other half matcha. Not too long ago I attempted another matcha shortbread recipe but wasn't happy with the results, so I was hoping to have more luck here. They did taste okay but weren't as good as the earl grey cookies, and the matcha dough was extremely crumbly. So crumbly that I had trouble cutting off pieces from the log to bake them (and I didn't have this problem with the earl grey portion). You can see on the matcha cookies the pieces that broke off as I was slicing the dough. It's possible I just don't like matcha shortbread, but I don't want to believe that so I'll keep trying!

Anyway, the earl grey cookies were just as good as I had remembered. Strong earl grey (bergamot) flavour, hint of orange (using orange zest), and a wonderfully delicate shortbread texture. The only problem I have with these cookies is rolling the dough into two logs. I seem to find it impossible to make the roll cylindrical and instead it's some lopsided mishapen thing that resembles something between a circle and a square. But that gives the cookies more character, right?

Earl Grey Tea Cookies
(Adapted from the special issue Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies 2005)

makes about 8 dozen supposedly, but I found it to make a few dozen

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves (from about 4 bags)*
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

1. In a small bowl, whisk flour, tea, and salt in a small bowl.

2. Put butter, sugar, and orange zest in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture until just combined.

3. Divide dough in half. Transfer each half to a piece of parchment paper; shape into logs. Roll in parchment to 1 1/4 inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow the log and force out air. Freeze until firm, about an hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350F. Cut logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment.

5. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through,until edges are golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

*You can grind the tea leaves in a small food processor, spice grinder, blender, or do as I did and use a magic bullet!
**Or just lay them carefully in your freezer on something long and flat.

Note: To make matcha shortbread, substitute matcha powder for Earl Grey tea and omit orange zest.

Madeleines to the Rescue

I told my mom that I'd bake something for her to take to work on one of those "bring food from your culture" days. I didn't try to bake anything from any particular culture, but instead was really excited to try out David Lebovitz's recipe for pineapple coconut cookies (which are basically macaroons). I adore David's food blog yet had never tried out one of his recipes. This one was from Ripe for Dessert. You heat the pineapple in a frying pan (something I've never done for cookies or anything else) until all the liquid evaporates, then add it to dried coconut flakes, sugar, vanilla and egg whites. I realized just now as I was writing this post why these cookies/macaroons totally didn't turn out - I forgot to add the sugar! Looking back over the recipe I now see that sugar is listed in the ingredients but not in the written instructions. The mystery of the disastrous cookies has been solved! I couldn't understand how the amazing David could have a recipe that disappointed. They were impossible to form into balls and tasted very weird without the sugar so I ended up throwing them all away. So you're welcome, for telling you what will happen if you forget to add sugar to your macaroons. I must try making these again because I love the use of pineapple in the cookies.

Anyway, I couldn't give my mom these cookies to take to work, so I quickly made up a batch of honey earl grey madeleines. Madeleines are basically little cakes, though for some reason some people call them cookies. When my friend and I first made madeleines we tried out a few different recipes to see which one was best. This was my original favourite, using a honey madeleine recipe and adding earl grey (an idea I got from Chez Pim if I remember correctly). I love bergamot and I love tea so adding earl grey to things (like shortbread, which I will post about soon) always makes me happy. I've also tried white chocolate, white chocolate blueberry, chocolate, lemon, and chocolate coconut madeleines. It's really easy to modify the recipe to add in whatever flavour you love most.

You can see by the tunnels that I mixed the batter too zealously this time.

Madeleines seem to have become my fall back baked treat. It's best if you refrigerate the batter for at least 30 minutes before baking them, which is the most annoying part about making them. Well it's only annoying if you wanted to bake them right away and then realized you have to wait. (One recipe has you refrigerate it for three hours - how can one wait that long!) But they're still easy to put together and quick to bake. If you don't put the batter in the fridge first, they'll still taste good but probably won't have the nice crown/hump. One very positive thing about madeleines is that you don't need to remember to take the butter out of the fridge beforehand (which I often forget) since you melt the butter. You need a madeleine tin to make these (they also have mini madeleine tins if that's your thing). And oh my, I didn't know they had silicone madeleine pans! You have to grease madeleine tins really well because of all the grooves, so a silicone pan would be especially appreciated. Madeleines are best when they're warm fresh out of the oven when they're a little bit crisp around the edges, in my opinion anyway.

Honey Earl Grey Madeleines
(adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe)

Makes 12

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, plus melted butter for molds
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon earl grey, finely ground (can be from a tea bag)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon packed light-brown sugar

1. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the butter, being sure to not let the butter brown. Remove from heat, and stir in honey, vanilla extract and earl grey tea. Let stand until room temperature. In a small bowl, whisk together, flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, using a rubber spatula mix the eggs and sugars until combined. Fold in flour mixture, until just combined. Add the cooled butter mixture, and continue to fold until combined. Cover the bowl, and refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees with rack in center. Brush madeleine molds with melted butter; set aside.

4. Fill each mold three-quarters full, using spoons, a pastry bag or an ice cream scoop. Do not overfill the molds. Bake until puffed, and the edges are golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack until pan is just cool enough to handle. Invert onto wire rack and serve warm, if possible.

Matcha (Green Tea) Cupcakes

I used to really hate sharing the kitchen with someone else. What if they didn't measure exactly right? What if they over mixed the batter? What if they didn't add things in the order the recipe specified?? (Can you tell that I'm a bit of a perfectionist/control freak.) Thankfully I've gotten over this and learned to be more laid back about cooking/baking with someone else. Now I love baking with my friend because I'm a lot more willing to take risks, not follow recipes exactly, and to come up with new creative ideas (since I've taken the pressure off myself for everything to turn out perfectly). When I bake by myself, I still stick fairly closely to the recipe if not completely. (Though since baking with her, I have started to modify baking recipes more than I ever did on my own. Like using half whole wheat flour in a recipe that calls for all purpose, gasp!) Every once in a while we get together and have a baking day. This time we decided it would be a matcha (green tea powder) baking day!

Mmm perfectly rounded little tops.

It started out with her wanting to make these little Totoros, which we didn't end up making. (Totoro is a well known character from a Japanese animated film called My Neighbor Totoro.) We decided to go with chockylit's recipe for matcha cupcakes (and PS you should check out this amazingly beautiful and creative cupcake blog). Our brainstorming about cupcakes came up with (are you ready for this because it's a long title) matcha cupcakes with a coconut brown sugar crust and a coconut buttercream icing topped with a matcha shortbread star and sprinkled with shredded coconut. Whew.

Look at the way the butter soaked up the sides of the liners!

The actual cupcake turned out incredibly well. They were tasty with just the right amount of matcha, and it was a nice dense yet soft cake. I love dense (but still moist) cakes, so I was really happy with these. The crust definitely needs to be improved upon but it still tasted good. I put too much butter and sugar I think, because it wasn't very firm. (Maybe just butter and coconut next time with a tiny bit of sugar? I'll have to do some crust research.)

I insanely love how batters look. I really don't know why but batters are just so beautiful to me.

As for the icing, I really dislike the very buttery buttercream icings. The ones where it feels like you're just eating a stick of butter. Because of this, I was not eager to make a buttercream icing but we didn't know what to do to get a nice smooth thick icing that didn't have butter or cream cheese. I don't have much experience with icings so I was feeling kind of lost. We found a basic icing recipe that could be modified to be made into a buttercream icing (so we were going to make half regular and half buttercream). I ended up not liking the consistency of the regular icing (especially after adding too much milk, making the icing too liquidy and unable to hold any sort of form other than gloop). I started adding butter, hoping that would help stiffen up the icing and fix everything (which it didn't really). We also mixed in shredded coconut with the icing, making it look kind of lumpy and strange. Overall the icing was a bit of a mess but it tasted okay (though my friend thought I put way too much vanilla, but how can you have too much vanilla?? Mmm. Unless you're making peanut butter cookies.)

Then there were the matcha shortbread stars that we topped the cupcakes with. We used a recipe from a Martha Stewart cookie magazine from a few years ago. This recipe was not as successful as the cupcakes. I thought there was too much matcha powder which didn't balance well with the shortbread. But they looked cute atop the cupcakes so all was not lost!

Just for fun, my friend wanted to make faux matcha madeleines (since we love making all kinds of madeleines - well I should say that she got me into baking madeleines.) We put the matcha shortbread into a madeleine tin and I was really surprised that it came out perfectly, and deceptively looking just like a madeleine.

I'm not going to post a recipe for the crust or the icing because neither were real winners. I'm sure if you want to make these you can find another icing that would work better than the one I attempted. Though they're also yummy without icing.

Green Tea or "Matcha" Cupcakes
(Adapted from chocklyit's recipe at Cupcake Bakeshop)
1/2 sheet pan or 24 cupcakes
350 degree oven

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons matcha

1. Prepare a 12 cup muffin pan with muffin liners or with butter.
2. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
3. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs/egg yolks one at a time, beat for 30 seconds between each.
5. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Add to batter and mix to combine.
6. Mix matcha in with the milk. Add to the batter and mix until combine.
7. Pour into prepared muffin pan and smooth flat.
8. Bake for 22-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.