Thursday, May 14, 2009

GREEN TEA MADELINES



This recipe was inspired by a madeline-like Japanese green tea cake I had the other day at lunch at the Japanese Market near work. It tasted like green tea and had that like dense fluffiness of a madeline. I am obsessed with madelines and green tea, so I made them get married and I am very happy with the result. I used a Emeril's Orange Madeline Recipe as my starting point and added to it the green tea and instead of oranges I substituted grapefruit. I also used castor sugar instead of regular sugar so they would be silky smooth and used cooking spray to grease the molds. Last, I omitted the chocolate dip. 
 
Words of advice: don't forget the eggs. For my first batch my batter was like green delicious crumply play dough. I knew something was wrong but I had to follow through. They came out like green tea biscuits and Mike had one and got sick. I had one too and I am fine. I think its his nerves. It wasn't smooth sailing. Instead of coating the pan with butter and flouring, I used cooking spray. They didn't pull completely off the pan. Then I tried to experiment. I did half the pan just with cooking spray and the other half with the butter and flour. The winner: cooking spray on its own. Those babies slid right out, and were delicious! 
















For the green tea powder I used Mariage Feres Matcha Uji Green Tea that I got when I visited Paris. It tastes just like green tea ice cream and its really fine and perfect for baking. 


















Green Tea Madelines
Ingredients
4 eggs at room temp
3/4 C. castor sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 stick melted butter, cooled
1 C. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. grapefruit zest
1 tsp. green tea powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the molds with cooking spray.
On high speed beat the eggs sugar and vanilla for 8-10 minutes until they are light and fluffy.
In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda and green tea. 
To the egg mixture add the grapefruit zest and about half of the flour mixture. Mix until combined. Add the other half of the flour mixture and mix until combined.
In a steady stream pour the butter into the mixture while beating, until combined.
Let stand at room temperature for 10 min.
Spoon batter into molds so they are 2/3 full and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden brown.
Let them cool a few minutes before popping them out of the molds.

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