Matcha Swiss Rolls, for Food52

When it comes to cake, I’m a bit boring – I prefer cakes that aren’t too sweet, too fancy, or too frilly. I love looking at a beautiful, intricately decorated cake, marveling at the baker’s talent, but when it comes to baking my own cake, I always find myself veering towards the simple. Part of it is, I admit, my own disastrous experiences with making fancy cakes, but that’s neither here nor there! I’m so happy to share this matcha swiss roll with you – it’s kind of a hybrid between a sponge cake and the classic swiss roll. A whipped meringue is gently incorporated into the batter, giving it its signature light and fluffy texture. This is an incredibly versatile recipe. I’ve done variations both in flavors and form: you can switch out the matcha and add in… ground black sesame seeds, for example, to make a black sesame roll cake. As for form, my favorite is to surprise people with a vertical roll cake. It’s made in the exact same method, except that when the cake is assembled, the cake is cut into three long strips and then rolled one after the other. You can see an example here. I call it the vertical cake roll.

This cake is inspired by my Japanese language class in high school. That’s right – I’ve been using this recipe as my go-to not-too-sweet cake for over five years. It started when I was first interested in baking. My teacher had a cute Japanese baking magazine filled with pretty images of pretty cakes. I immediately honed in on a fluffy-looking cake roll and decided to make it a project: to translate it and make it! As a non-experienced baker, I was flummoxed by the different measurements, the requirement for a scale, and the unfamiliar ingredients. Eventually, with the help of my teacher, I came up with a workable recipe and tried my hand with it. It was good, but not what I’d expected. So, I tabled it. Several years past, and I’d learned more about baking cakes, whipping up meringues, and other tidbits of information that helped me understand what I did wrong and how the recipe needed to be changed. To make a long story short, a couple of years after my initial translated recipe, I was able to struggle my way through many iterations and finally came up with a light, fluffy cake recipe, which is up on Food52’s Small Batch column!

Matcha Mint Panna Cotta

First things first – le jus d’orange was featured on Zeit magazin! You can read about it (in German) here.

In Boston, St. Patrick’s Day is a big holiday. At least, the parade is a big deal. Snow, rain, a mix of both type of precipitation – nothing stops the parade and the onset of green-clad onlookers. I decided to stay in and instead celebrate by making a batch of matcha mint panna cotta. I took everything I had that was green and made sense together (so for example, not matcha and celery) and made it into a creamy pudding. The original Italian version uses egg whites and involves baking, but it’s supposed to be complicated and delicate. Instead, I took inspiration from Beth at Local Milk and Cynthia at Two Red Bowls and adapted the cream and gelatin version of panna cotta. When I read through it, I was amazed by its simplicity. A large component of the flavor seems to come from the infusing step. I brewed in matcha and fresh mint leaves and let that steep. I then topped it off with sifted matcha powder, some honey, and crushed pistachios. I thought the pistachios added a nice balance to the soft pudding.

Right after I ladled the cream mixture into ramekins to set, I met up with Meg from Bread + Barrow (lovely, gorgeous blog), and we had a great time talking about food blogging, our life stories, while munching on croissants and drinking hot coffee. We even bought the same cookbook after having a wonderfully philosophical conversation with Abby from Farm & Fable about food blogs and cookbooks. I admit I was nervous at first – I mean, have you seen her blog? Her writing, her authentic recipes, her gorgeous photos… I couldn’t help but feel intimidated. It was a cold rainy morning, with gray snow mounds still crowding the sidewalk. I felt increasingly guilty and anxious for making her trek all the way to the South End, where street parking is no joke. When she walked in the door, all my anxiety disappeared – simply washed away at the first smile. As cheesy as this may sound, it was like I was talking to a close friend already. And that’s the beauty of blogging – we follow our favorite bloggers and we are allowed these vignettes of their lives, glimpses into the person. We learn about their lifestyle and their preferences in their recipes and blog posts. Yes, these posts are public for anyone and everyone to view, but I still feel like I’m privileged to be able to get to know these bloggers, albeit virtually. Meeting up with Meg really solidified why I keep blogging. I’m constantly inspired by my readers and my fellow blogger friends. The food community is a warm embrace, and I feel lucky to be a part of it.

Black Sesame Vertical Roll Cake + Matcha Mochi

It’s Valentine’s Day. This cake has hearts on it. But it’s not meant for Valentine’s day. I made this cake and I’m posting on this particular day, because it’s my  mom’s birthday!!!! Happy birthday, Mom!!! I love you so much and I want to dedicate this cake to you.

I honestly thought I’d start out with a anecdote or a mini biography about my mom, but I can’t put those into words. Instead, a list of little moments comes through. Like when she waited with me outside a big hall before I took my piano exams. When she first taught me how to cook and and basically just threw in seasonings with no measurements and told me to cook until it just looks right. When she stayed outside in the car reading a book, waiting for me and my sister to finish our harp lessons. When I came home crying because I got a traffic ticket, and she just smiled and said it’s OK, but didn’t you see the sign that said no turn on red? When she dropped me off in St Louis for college for the first time, leaving me with packs of homemade goods. When I get a short, punctuated text back because she’s not used to texting. When she and my dad decided to buy a larger tote bag for my aunt in China, because “it’s better to fit bread”. When she patiently taught me how to wrap shaomai. And zhongzi. And jiu cai he zi, and so many more precious things. When she laughed at me in Shanghai because I was obviously targeted as the foreigner… because I didn’t speak Shanghainese and she had to intervene.

These little moments don’t seem to be significant, but I hoard them like a miser now that I’m geographically miles away. My mom is my inspiration (her food is one of the reasons I even decided to start this blog). She’s the person I go to for advice, my bulwark of steadiness. She’s my comfort, my rock. My mom is who I want to be when I grow up.

Buttermilk Matcha Rolls with Black Sesame Cinnamon Filling

They’re like cinnamon rolls… on tea. I was going to write on steroids, but that’s so overused and it didn’t really make sense because they’re not buffed up versions of cinnamon rolls. They’re just different, with more of a tea/nutty flavor. If you’ve had matcha flavored treats, you know what I’m talking about. Then add black sesame to the cinnamon filling????!!!!! You’ve got crazy awesome cinnamon rolls to devour. But really, matcha rolls with black sesame cinnamon filling. They’re not really cinnamon rolls. I’m not going to call them that. I don’t think words can express how much I love matcha. It adds such a lovely depth to baked goods. As the matcha editor for the Matcha feed at The Feed Feed, I’m constantly looking for goods using matcha, and I’m constantly amazed by the creativity of the community!!!

Let’s have some link love for all things matcha:

• Like these raspberry matcha mille feuille
• And aren’t these so cute? matcha macarons!! I may need to make a nut free version soon.
• OMG. Matcha brownies. GREEN BLOBS. 
• this bread. this braided, beautiful bread.  Yes. with matcha.

In my tiny corner of the food blogging world, I’m so excited to share with you my recipe for matcha cinnamon rolls. It uses buttermilk, which we all know is the key to super soft things, a lot of patience, matcha, and black sesame. Among other ingredients normally found in rolls, such as sugar and egg.

I get a lot of questions about where I find my matcha. You can find them online, at Whole Foods, or, my personal favorite, at Encha! Li literally tore off my blinds and introduced me to four grades of matcha. Four. You know, it makes sense, because if you think about other ingredients we drink that we use to cook (like bourbon or white wine), you know that you should always cook what you will drink. So none of that cheap barely tolerable white wine. Same thing with matcha – you want to bake with quality matcha meant for baking. I used culinary grade organic matcha in these rolls, which you can find here. Do you see this gorgeous gorgeous color without ANY food dyes?

I rolled these in two different ways (if you can’t tell, I’m very indecisive when it comes to forming buns and all that. My solution is to just make them both!)

Matcha Green Tea Latte

Hi everyone! Julie from The Feed Feed, a wonderful community and resource, asked me to help curate a matcha feed – you can check it out here. I had a really difficult time choosing which matcha product to include in the feed – I honestly wanted to choose them all!! The Feedfeed community is incredibly talented – I know where I’ll be going for inspiration!

For now, I’m going to continue with the matcha obsession and offer this simple recipe for matcha green tea latte. I used honey as a sweetener, because I choose honey over sugar any day of the week

Matcha Vertical Cake Roll

We’ve all had swiss rolls before – pumpkin rolls, strawberry cake rolls, and my favorite, matcha cake rolls. Now, I’m not cake decorator or even baker – I admit it: I’m terrified of making cakes. Crumb coats, frosting, just baking the cake right… there’s a million steps to perfecting layer cakes. On my wish list is this book by Linda Lomelino, because who can resist good photography, pretty cakes, and instructions on how to bake a cake?

So I turn to the cake roll. Instead of the normal way to roll this cake, I rolled it vertically. It’s a fancy (ish) way to say that I cut it into strips and kept on rolling so it became a big wheel of cake and whipped cream. Then I just turned it on its side so that the swirls are facing up. I’m doing a horrible job of explaining this. One day, I will make a step by step photos post. I promise!! For now, hopefully these photos will help you get a sense of what it looks like.

Honey Matcha (green tea) Ice Cream

After the wedding, Alex and I embarked on a two week trip to China and Japan. I don’t think I’ll talk much about China, as that was mostly a visit to see relatives rather than sightseeing. We traveled all around the JiangSu region, starting in Shanghai then going on to Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, and Nanjing. We did a lot of large banquets with family, so on our spare time we stuffed ourselves with pork buns, shaomai, and xiaolongbao :). And milk tea.

Japan served as our mini-moon. We decided not to go on our real honeymoon until next spring, and we’re going to New Zealand!! For now, after traipsing around China, we flew to Japan to truly vacation.

In Japan, we met up with my best friend R, and she opened our worlds to the wonderful foods of Japan. One of my favorites was matcha ice cream, made with real matcha, the powdered green tea of Japan. Let’s back track and I’ll explain why this is important. I’ve been looking for and trying matcha ice cream in the US, but there’s always been something wrong. Honestly, the green tea ice cream I’ve had in the States taste like vanilla ice cream with just a touch of green tea for color. I did not taste matcha green tea at all. When R brought us to a cute ice cream shop, I immediately knew which flavor I was going to get (I also chose peach and red bean. Incidentally, I also tasted pumpkin and tomato flavored ice cream. They were truly delicious, so watch out for a recipe once I hash that out!) The matcha ice cream in Japan is divine!! It’s a deep green and is a tad bittersweet, if you can imagine that. I could taste the matcha from the start, and there was no overpowering sweetness to mask the flavor of the tea.

I had received an ice cream maker as a gift, and I had to try and recreate matcha green tea. I’m very happy with the results. I love how the honey compliments the bittersweet matcha without overpowering its taste. Use quality matcha and don’t be shy in heaping that in! I’m already excited to re-make this!!!!