Matcha and Azuki

This matcha azuki cake was made for a friend's mother's birthday. An almond joconde band surrounding matcha white chocolate mousse. Inside was a light matcha chiffon and cooked azuki beans. A thin layer of gelle on top before the cascade of chocolate curls and ribbons and cubes of yokan (a firm jelly made with agar) made from azuki bean paste and matcha. I love the color contrast and the different textures and heights make it really interesting.

Green Tea Rice Cooker Bread

I was watching this Japanese anime, Yakitate!! Japan, the other day and actually got this recipe from it. Yes, yes, call me crazy for getting a recipe off a cartoon but it never hurts to try. I was a bit skeptical as to whether it would turn out or not but I thought I'd try it out anyways. It is for a white bread that's baked in a rice cooker! Granted their rice cooker was a lot fancier than the one I had at home but mine turned out better than I expected. It also said to add eggs or any other flavour to your liking so I thought I'd try out the matcha tea I had been storing inside my cabinet. Here's the recipe:

350 g Bread flour
21 g sugar
6.5 g salt
35 cc milk
180 cc water
21 g butter
5 g dry yeast

- In the rice cooker bowl, put in the flour, then sugar, salt, water and yeast mixed together, and milk. Knead until dough comes together. Knead in soft butter and knead dough till not sticky and slightly elastic. Shape dough into ball and place inside bowl and proof in warm place till doubled (I left it in the rice cooker on the warm setting and turned it off after a half hour). Punch down to deflate air and shape into a ball again. Leave in bowl and proof again till doubled. Turn the rice cooker on and "cook" for about 45 mins. Flip the dough over and cook again for 45 mins. The recipe says to flip again and cook for another 45 mins but I found that mine didn't need this. Remove and cool.







-after the 2nd proof

I also added in 2 tbsp of matcha powder with the flour. The result was a very green soft, bread. It looked more like a cake because it was baked in the bowl but the interior was chewier than normal sandwich bread which was interesting. It wasn't as green tea-y as I would have liked but it did lend a nice colour to it. The crust was actually quite good and crunchier than I thought it would be. It's a bit of work to bake in the rice cooker so next time, I think I might just use the same recipe but bake it in the oven to see how it turns out.