chocolate lava with green tea ice-cream
As an Austin culinary arts school student, you’ve probably noticed that green tea is one of the popular health food trends right now. People are drinking it plain, adding it to smoothies and even greening up their cocktails. But there are also plenty of food items that can be made with this antioxidant-rich beverage. Here are a few to try at home:
White chocolate green tea cookies
Listen, if you want to eat cookies, go ahead and do so. These green beauties are strikingly colored and very tasty, plus they’re not as bad for you as the ones you made from the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. (Although we still love those too.) Salu Salo uses roughly chopped white chocolate in her recipe, along with just 1 teaspoon of matcha (aka green tea) and your typical cookie ingredients. It’s pretty awesome how green they get with so little of the tea. They can be a little crunchy if you bake for an extra few minutes, or soft and chewy if you pull them out of the oven right at 24 minutes. Take your pick and enjoy this semi-healthy treat.
Green tea macarons
Macarons are another food trend of the moment. The delicious baked snacks are fun to make and people love munching on them for dessert. You can make vivid green ones with the addition of matcha. Blogger Lisa’s Lemony Kitchen adds a little green food coloring to really bring out the hue. Her recipe calls for eggs, almond meal, sugar, lemon juice and eggs. They key to getting this sweet right is to let the eggs get to room temperature before beginning. These would make really great additions to a baby shower or gifts for a friend. Put a few drops of super bright coloring (like blue or pink) in the icing to add a rainbow effect.
Blueberry and matcha popsicles
Many people turn to green tea in the summertime because it is refreshing. With Food + Love gathers blueberries from the local farmers market and bakes them with a little honey. Then, she makes the base of the popsicle with coconut milk, avocado, salt, honey and matcha by blending them. Place some blueberries in a popsicle mold and then add the rest of the mix until it reaches the top. Place a stick in each section and you’ll have frozen treats in no time.
