I've finally done it!
Before I tell you what I've done I must first tell you how I got here. For a couple of years Trader Joe's carried this yummy green tea muffin mix that I bought 2 and 3 boxes at a time. It was delicious and they made the perfect snacks - a little something sweet but very uncomplicated.
Then one day they were gone.
Gone.
Gone.
From every Trader Joe's in the greater SF Bay Area (yes - I've been to most of them...I really like Trader Joe's).
My green tea muffin love affair morphed into a mission to make my own green tea muffins. I steeped tea bags in water 3, 4 and 5 at a time, I steeped them in milk; I've cut open tea bags, crushed tea leaves. Every time I ended up with boring, plain muffins. They were never bad muffins - but very little green tea flavor actually made it through.
Then, this past weekend I had an afternoon to myself (sans husband and child - woo hoo) and I went to the store. But not just any store, Berkeley Bowl - West (which will need it's own post after I've more thoroughly vetted the 'new' establishment). For now just know that their bulk foods section is phenomenal. So much so that I wished I had a need for spelt and tapioca flour just so I could open the bins.
(back to the muffins)
Off in a lonely corner was a large jar of bright green Matcha Green Tea powder - the one thing I'd been missing from all of my attempts at the elusive green tea muffin. I left the store with about 1/4 cup of bright green powder. If you look up how expensive Matcha is, you'll understand what I only committed myself to about $2 worth.
Then I came home and made these:
(This is also my attempt at using parchment paper as muffin cups - nothing exciting to report about that. I'm pretty anti-muffin liner in general, they just get in the way.)
I'm still perfecting the recipe but here's the general idea:
- 1 2/3 cu flour (I did 1 cup all purpose and 2/3 whole wheat)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 TBS Matcha (I'm going to use more next time - I love green tea)
- 1/3 cu sugar + a little bit of agave syrup (I think I'm going to use brown sugar next time)
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 1 cup milk (I used soy)I'm going to add maybe 1/4 cup of walnuts next time
Preheat oven to 350
Mix flours, salt, baking powder, matcha, sugar in med bowl.
Mix egg, butter, milk, and agave in a smaller bowl and then add it to the dry ingredients.
Bake for 20 min.
Enjoy!!
I'll be making these over the next few weeks with some variations until I've found my perfect muffin. I'm planning on adding a handful or so of walnuts; using brown sugar and/or honey (note - if you replace all of a dry sugar with a wet sugar like honey or agave then you should reduce the amount of milk you use). I'm also going to increase the proportion of whole wheat to all-purpose flour. Some recipes I looked at used as much as 1 full cup of sugar which would have been way too sweet for me - but you do what works for you.
I'll let you know how they work out.
