Matcha sablé cookies

Matcha has seen a huge increase in popularity in the recent years. I’ve seen it been incorporated into a whole range of foods – soba, mochi, breads, cookies, cakes, frapuccinos etc. And why not really? It has a wide range of health benefits, increases metabolism and energy levels, and is packed with antioxidants. Plus it gives a beautiful green tinge to food – in my books, that’s a definite win.

Catty (who is by far, one of the most matcha mad people out there) decided that it was time that the world joined her in her love for matcha. And so Matcha Madness! month was born. The concept is simple: make anything with matcha in it, and two best recipes (as determined by Catty & Teapigs) will win a tin of matcha each.

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to make. As I mentioned, matcha is incredibly versatile…. and I am incredibly fickle. Possibilities included matcha semifreddo, matcha marshmallows, matcha opera cake and matcha biscuits. My original plan was to make the marshmallows, but I decided against them at the last minute because it’s been so humid lately that I was worried that my marshmallows would not fare very well. Having said that, it’s definitely something I’m going to make when it gets cooler as homemade marshmallows are so, so much better than storebought ones. Unless you’re buying them from Pierre Marcolini.

I’d previously seen these cookies on Y’s blog, and was intrigued by them. She’s an excellent baker , and when she said these were the best matcha cookies she’d ever tasted, I immediately bookmarked the recipe. And you know what, I agree with her. I’ve not eaten many matcha cookies, but of the ones I have – I think these are my favourite to date.

Sablé is a French shortbread biscuit that originated in the Normandy province. The word “sablé” means “sand”, and is rather appropriate as these cookies have a sandy and crumbly texture. The sandiness comes from the the cookie itself, as well as the sugar that coats the edges of each biscuit. As always, I cut down on the sugar content of the cookies – which I think may have made the matcha flavour more intense. Not that I’m complaining though! Although they’re meant to be similar to shortbread, they’re less rich compared to normal shortbread… which means you can eat more at one go and not feel *as* guilty about it. Perfect, no?

I brought these to work, and everyone loved them (even people who hated green tea!). So if you’re a fan of matcha and shortbread-type cookies, do try making these. I promise you will love it.

Matcha sablé cookies
Ever so slightly adapted from this recipe on Lemonpi (who got the recipe from Okashi by Keiko Ishida)

• 240g cake flour* (chilled)
• 15g matcha powder (green tea powder)
• 150g butter (at room temperature)
• 90g icing sugar (note: the original recipe calls for 130g icing sugar)
• pinch salt
• 2 egg yolks

1. Sift chilled cake flour and matcha powder twice. Set aside.
2. Beat butter, sugar and salt in a stand mixer (or in a bowl with a hand mixer) until the mixture becomes soft and creamy.
3. Add in the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after the addition of each yolk.
4. Fold in the flour/green tea powder mix with a spatula. I folded it in in 2 batches, simply because I would have sent a lot of flour flying all over my kitchen if I had attempted to do it all in one go.
5. Cover dough with clingfilm, and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. This step helps the dough firm up so you can form them into logs in the next step.
6. Divide dough into two portions. Place both portions on two pieces of parchment paper of clingfilm, and shape them into logs of about 2.5 cm diameter. Wrap the logs up and refrigerate until firm (I left them for about 2 hours). The cookie dough can be frozen in the freezer for later use if you wish, and can be kept for up to 2 months.
7. Preheat the oven to 150°C.
8. Take the logs out of the refrigerator, and roll them in demerara sugar or granulated sugar. Cut logs into 7mm thick rounds, and place the sliced cookie dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes (until the cookies start to brown slightly), then remove and leave to cook on a wire rack before serving. Cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days.

* If you don’t have any cake flour, you can make your own quite easily. Add 2 tablespoons corn starch to each cup of plain flour used. Sift twice, and measure out the amount needed in the recipe from the sieved mixture. Voila, cake flour!

The food of Florence [Part 2]

It has been very warm in London lately, and the sun has brought back many fond memories of my recent trip to Florence. In an ideal world, I’d jump on a plane and fly out to Florence again (because it has truly won its place as one of my favourite holiday destinations)… but for now I’ll just have to be content with looking back at photos and reminiscing.

As I mentioned previously, the only part of the trip I planned (besides where we would stay, of course) was the food. I actually had a list of restaurants tucked in my handbag, which I constantly referred to in the time we were there. One of the places that was high up on that list was Osteria I’Tozzo di Pane. I read many good reviews about this cozy little Italian tavern, tucked away in a quiet street away from the bustling tourist spots. It took a while to find it, but boy am I glad we did. The food was simple, but oh so good. And to top it all off, they had the most beautiful outdoor dining area – if only we had similar places in London! I can’t think of how to describe the area, so I’ll let a photo do the talking.

Isn’t that just so beautiful? We dined at an odd time, so the restaurant was almost empty. From what I hear, it gets really busy during dinner service – and I can imagine why! We dined there twice, but both times were during lunch so we never got to see the outdoor dining area by night.

I was happily snapping photos of my surroundings whilst waiting for the food to arrive…

Carpaccio di bresaola con rucola, scaglie di grana e limone (very typical salami beef with salad and cheese).  So simple, yet so good. The beef carpaccio was seasoned to perfection, and complemented the bitter rocket leaves well. The cheese was just icing on the cake, because what dish doesn’t taste good with cheese? (Please note that I am an utter cheese fanatic though – when I was younger, I used to throw cubes of cheddar cheese into Chinese style soup because err.. well, I liked the meltiness of it. My mum thought I was completely bonkers by the way, so I won’t be surprised if you are appalled by this.)

Salsiccia di cinghiale con carciofi marinati e mozzarella di bufala (wildboar sausage with artichoke and buffalo mozzarella). I was on a slight artichoke-mad phase whilst in Florence, and would inevitably be attracted by any dish that had artichokes in it. Based on the deliciousness of the wildboar ragu at Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco, I decided to order this and I was very happy with my choice. I sometimes find it amazing how simple ingredients can taste so good, because this was what it was. The meatiness of the wildboar, woodiness of the artichoke, the freshness of the buffalo mozzarella and the sweetness of the tomato slices went really well together, and I truly enjoyed this dish.

Carpaccio di carciofi con scaglie di pecorino e limone (artichoke carpaccio with pecorino cheese and lemon). More artichokes, yes. I’m unstoppable when I’m on a food craze. Also, artichokes are rarely used as the star of the dish in London, and it was really nice to see it being featured so heavily in Florence. This was very good, and the artichoke carpaccio was perfectly seasoned. I suspect meat lovers may feel that the dish is lacking ‘meat’ though.

Orecchiette con salsiccia, cavolo nero e semi di finocchietto (pasta with pork sausage, black cabbage and fennel seeds). I absolutely LOVED this dish. I’d never even heard of black cabbage (also known as black kale/Tuscan kale) before eating this dish, and I’m so glad I now know that it exists. I felt that the addition of the fennel seeds elevated the pasta sauce to something really special. I was planning to order it again when we returned two days later…. but alas, they didn’t have it on the menu! (The menu had changed ever so slightly… it’s good though as it probably means the food they cook is dependent on the produce that is available on the day.)

Garganelli di pasta fresca con zucchine spek e zafferano (fresh pasta with smoked ham, zucchini and saffron). Now, we’ve all cooked a ham and zucchini/courgette pasta at some point. But I’Tozzo goes one step further and adds saffron. And my oh my it does it work well. This was a perfect example of how Italians manage to keep their pastas simple but so wonderfully delicious.

Spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clams). Again a wonderful example of how you don’t need many ingredients to create a stunning dish. I always find it hard to plate pasta/noodles, as mine inevitably ends up looking really un-artistic and ugly. I can only look at the wonderful pasta and noodle photos in Donna Hay magazine and hope that one day, I will learn how to plate noodles properly. Anyway, I digress. I meant to say that I loved how this was plated, and the sprinkling of chopped parsley added more colour and vibrancy to the dish. No paramesan with this dish: our waiter pleaded “please don’t use parmesan, pleeease” when he brought this to the table. Heh.

Filetto di maiale all’aceto balsamico (balsamic vinegar pork fillet). I daresay this was R’s favourite dish in I’Tozzo, as he ordered it on both visits. It doesn’t look like much, but it definitely delivers on taste. The pork fillet was beautifully tender and each bite gives you a huge hit of balsamic vinegar. I enjoyed this, but not as much as R – but that’s because I have very sensitive teeth that don’t do very well with acidic foods like vinegar. Having said that I did eat a fair bit of this… as much as R would allow me to anyway!

Straccetti di manzo al vino rosso e finocchietto (beef in red wine with fennel seeds). This was good, but not as good as all the other dishes that we tried here. The beef chunks, whilst perfectly seasoned, were ever so slightly tough – which made me not as fond of it as I could potentially have been.

Panna cotta with a chocolate sauce. Now, compared to the panna cotta at Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco, this was much much creamier. I could literally feel the pounds piling on as I ate this. Not that it stopped me from finishing it, of course. My only gripe about this was that the chocolate sauce wasn’t thick enough.. perhaps an attempt to not make the dessert too cloying? If I could, I’d eat the panna cotta from I’Tozzo with the chocolate sauce from Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco. If only.

So yes. This is just a glimpse of the wonderful dishes at this cozy and friendly osteria. I daresay we experienced the friendliest and most helpful service here – our waiter (whose name I forgot to ask for!) was the most cheerful waiter I have EVER come across, and was constantly humming/singing. It also helps that he recommended an excellent gelato shop to us, and even marked it on my map! (I shall blog about gelato in a future post.)

Delicious food and excellent service. Could a girl want any more?

Osteria I’Tozzo di Pane
Via Guelfa 94/r
50129 Firenze
http://www.osteriatozzodipane.it/en_home.html

Raspberry buttermilk cupcakes

So. Remember that photo of the cupcakes I posted right before I went off on holiday? (Actually you probably don’t, simply because it’s been ages since…) Anyway, I’ve decided that it’s high time I blog about them, and take one thing off my seriously worrying list of backlogs. I mean, I have things dating back to January that are still in the ‘someday’ pile. Eeep.

But enough about that, and on to the cupcakes. As I’ve mentioned previously, I *love* Bill Granger. His recipes are simple, he provided me with my favourite pancake recipe and seems like a genuinely nice person (on his show anyway). What more could you want? He is also by far, one of the smiley-est chefs I’ve seen on tv – in fact he smiles so much that sometimes I struggle to wonder what he would look like without a huge grin on his face. I currently own three of his cookbooks, and I love all of them. The gorgeous photos help, of course (one to each recipe, the way I like it!). Every recipe I’ve used from his books has worked well, with the added bonus of them being really easy to whip up from ingredients you’ll tend to find in your fridge/storecupboard.

I was intrigued by this recipe for a buttermilk cake with a raspberry syrup the moment I saw it. I like using buttermilk when baking, as I find it makes the cakes/bread/cupcakes very soft and moist. The best thing about it is that you can easily make your own buttermilk at home – just add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup of milk, and let it sit for 10 minutes. Voila, you have buttermilk!

I tweaked the recipe slightly, as I preferred the raspberries in the cake as opposed to only being in the sauce. I also made them into cupcakes because… they’re cuter. Plus it gave me a chance to experiment with a sugar icing topping, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. However, I did find that many of the raspberries burst during the baking process, which meant my cupcakes were slightly ‘wetter’ and denser than I would like. Maybe that’s why the recipe calls for a raspberry syrup… hmmm. And perhaps I should learn how to follow recipes properly. But no matter, because despite my issues with it’s ‘wetness’, I still enjoyed the cupcakes – a lot.

Raspberry buttermilk cupcakes
Adapted from a Bill Granger recipe in Bill’s Food

For the cupcakes:

• 125g butter, softened
• 180g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 250ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 250g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 200g raspberries
• pinch of salt

For the sugar icing:

• 60g icing sugar, sifted
• 2-3 tablespoons hot water
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• raspberries (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar until it becomes pale and fluffy. I use my trusty Kitchen Aid (on high speed), but this will work just as well with handheld electric beaters.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between the addition of each egg.
4. Turn the mixer down to low speed, and beat in the buttermilk and vanilla extract until just combined.
5. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixing bowl in two batches, mixing well (either with a spatula or with your mixer on low speed) in between each addition.
6. Lastly, carefully add the raspberries into the batter – they’re quite fragile so take care to not ‘burst’ all of them, or you’ll end up with a red batter!
7. Spoon the mixture into a greased muffin tray/muffin cases.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean/and the cupcakes are golden. Leave to cool.
9. Whilst the cupcakes are cooling, make the topping. Mix the sugar, hot water and vanilla extract in a bowl until it forms a smooth mixture.
10. Once the cupcakes have cooled, pour the sugar icing over each cupcake. Do not pour too much on as it will envelope the whole cupcake in icing, and it won’t look as nice.
11. Top with raspberries (if you like), and serve.