Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
Wishing you a healthy, safe and propserous 2014 to all!I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year break with your family and friends. Over the break I’ve received a few more requests for the MatchaMisu recipe I made for Christmas 2013. Sharing the love and recipe based on Keiko Ishida Okashi recipe, it’s deliciously easy to make, just a matter of assembling!

MatchMisu (Green Tea Tiramisu)

Although it can be a no-bake recipe, I chose to make my own biscuit sponge fingers to layer in the tiramisu but you don’t have to! You can also use the store bought italian sponge fingers too which I have done before and it still turns out well (on this occasion the store bought ones at home had expired when I was about to make this…) though I have found the homemade sponge fingers texture is more softer so able to absorb moisture better than the store-bought ones.

Biscuit Sponge
– 2 eggs (separate egg yolk and egg whites)
– 60g Caster Sugar
– 60g Self Raising Flour (sift twice)
– 1tsp Vanilla Bean Extract

1. Preheat oven 200C
2. Separate egg yolks and egg whites. Beat egg yolks with half of the sugar and all the vanilla until creamy.
3. Make meringue with the egg whites and remaining sugar.
4. Add one-third of meringue mixture into egg yolk mixture and fold. Add sifted flour and fold. Add remaining meringue and fold.
5. Spoon batter into piping bag (1cm tip) and pipe 7cm (or to suit your serving dish) long fingers onto a baking tray. Dust with icing sugar and bake for 7-10min. (Bake immediately after dusting the icing sugar, don’t let the sugar melt into the fingers before baking as it will burn more easily).

MatchaMisu (Green Tea Tiramisu)
– Biscuit sponge (about 20 fingers)
– Mascarpone Filling
– 2 eggs (separate egg yolk and egg whites)
– 70g Caster sugar
– 250g mascarpone cheese
– 100g pure cream
– 15g matcha green tea powder
– hot water (around 150ml)
– Matcha green tea powder for dusting

1. Separate egg yolks and egg whites. Beat egg yolks with half of the sugar until creamy then add mascarpone cheese and mix well.
2. Beat pure cream to make whipping cream until stiff. Fold through whipped cream in the mascarpone mixture.
3. Make meringue with the egg whites and remaining sugar. Fold meringue into the mascarpone mixture.
4. Dissolve 15g green tea powder with hot water in a small bowl. Dip each biscuit sponge into the green tea mixture to soak up green tea and place in a serving dish (or individual serving cups).
5. Spread mascarpone cheese mixture over the layer of green tea soaked biscuit sponges. Dip more biscuit sponges in green tea and layer over the mascarpone mixture. Spread remaining mascarpone mixture over the 2nd layer of biscuit sponges.
6. Dust generously with green tea powder and refrigerate (can be kept refrigerated for about 2 days…but who can wait that long?!)

If you like red bean, you can also add a layer of azuki red bean between the biscuit sponge and the mascarpone mixture. Or if you want extra green tea flavour, add some in the mascarpone mixture as well.

Enjoy!