A Japanese twist on an old favourite!


JUNE 13, 08

RECIPE

Ingredients
2 large eggs
1 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 tbsp green tea powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
Red bean (adzuki) paste 1/2 - 1 cup

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C
2. Cream butter in a bowl.
3. Add sugar and vanilla essence to the butter and mix well.
4. Gradually add beaten eggs and stir well.
5. Sift flour, baking powder, together and add the flour to the egg mixture
6. Pour half the batter into muffin cups (large is a good size), press in a ball of red bean paste, and pour batter in to almost the top.
7. Bake for about 20 (?) minutes or till toothpick inserted comes out clean.

(modified from original recipe here)


another shot


and what's inside!

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This is actually the same recipe as the Never Fail Pound Cake, but with green tea powder instead of vanilla extract...A LOT of green tea powder. Most of the green tea recipes I see call for 1-2 tbsp max of green tea powder, but I swear I could upend the whole bag of powder and still only get a trace of that beloved green tea scent. Maybe the powder I'm using is not concentrated enough; I have no idea.

As for the adzuki paste...I'm actually a huge traditionalist who believes by making all my ingredients from scratch, there are things I'm just too lazy to do. For example, I would never grate my own pineapple to make the filling for pineapple tarts when I can buy pre-cut chunks in a tin and just add the sugar. However, if you'd like to make your own adzuki paste, you can find recipes online. It's not too difficult, just time-consuming.

Anyway, these muffins are delicious, if mainly because of the adzuki filling. (since you can't taste much of the green tea)

VERDICT: PASSED

Labels: BAKING

0 BITES