On Sunday, I ate an entire pineapple all by myself. That has nothing to do with this post, but I needed to tell someone. I feel better now.

This post is about popsicles. Matcha mousse popsicles, to be exact.

I’ve been reorganizing my kitchen and recently came across a set of popsicle molds that I haven’t used in a long time. I immediately thought to try making popsicles using a similar technique as that of the Green Tea and Pistachio Semifreddo recipe in my book, which uses freshly whipped cream as the base for a moussey texture.

I have this set of Tovolo popsicle molds* and I love them. Easy to use and easy to get the popsicles out of. It’s one of those kitchen gadgets that you know you don’t really need, but as soon as you’ve tried them you’ll never be satisfied with the old crooked-stick-in-a-paper-cup method again.

I loved the flavor of these. The tangy yogurt is powerful, but the matcha can stand up to it. They’re just lightly grassy and not too sweet.

The texture is the best part though. You can bite right into them without breaking a tooth. They give easily and dissolve in your mouth like cotton candy.

Matcha mousse pops

Cloud-like moussey popsicles with the springy flavor of matcha green tea and tangy yogurt.

Prep Time: 3 hours, 10 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours, 10 minutes

Yield: 6 popsicles

Ingredients

• 8oz. (236mL) heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup plain unsweetened yogurt
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 4 tbsp. powdered matcha green tea

Cooking Directions

1. In a mixer with a whisk attachment, beat the cream and sugar until stiff peaks form.
2. Gently fold in yogurt with a spatula and sift over matcha powder.
3. Beat again to incorporate and re-fluff the mixture to stiff peaks.
4. Spoon mixture into popsicle molds up to about a centimeter from the top and cap with the provided handles.
5. Freeze pops for at least 3 hours. To eat, run the mold under warm water until the popsicle slides out of the mold.

If green tea is not your thing, I’d imagine it would be fantastic to substitute cocoa powder to make a delicious chocolate mousse treat. You could even try using protein powder and convince yourself that it’s an appropriate post-workout snack. 😉 (Hint: It’s not.)

Speaking of my book, Amazon has recently dropped the price on it by a few bucks! This is great news to me since I’ve wanted it priced lower but have been unable to due to the constraints of the printer. Now though, you get it for less and I don’t make any less per sale. WIN! So if you’ve been thinking about picking it up, now would be a great time. I have absolutely zero control over Amazon’s pricing choices so this new price could change at any time and I would have nothing to do with it.

If you’re interested, click the banner in the sidebar or check it out here.

Have you ever made your own popsicles?

What flavor mousse pop would you like to make?

*This is an affiliate link. Product links on this website will always link to items I have actually used and find value in.

May 28, 2013 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 23 comments

I remember when I was a kid we had blackberries growing in our backyard. They were on the corner of the property, twisting and winding out of Dad’s ever-growing pile of lawn clippings. I remember filling a mason jar with them and begging my Mom to bake them into a pie for me. She artfully dodged that bullet by instead making me a bowl of the berries in milk, sprinkled liberally with sugar.

I loved the tart berries with their sandy coating of sweetness swimming in a bowl of sugary milk- it was summer in a bowl.

I saw blackberries at the market a few weeks ago and thought they were looking ripe enough to try. Berries are one food I will never buy out of season, they’re a totally different and disappointing food when they haven’t had enough sunshine yet to sweeten them up properly. I had no idea what I wanted to do with them, but for some reason that memory of sugared berries that I hadn’t had since I was a child came to mind.

If I was going to do this I wanted to class the whole thing up a bit, make an “adult” version of my childhood treat. Green matcha tea sounded like the perfect grown-up sprinkling sugar flavor.

The flavor is still mostly sweet, with just a faint springy green flavor similar to the herbal flavor of mint. It’s not bitter at all. The best part may just be the leftover sugary green tea milk at the bottom of the bowl.

The recipe is super simple: 10 parts sugar to 1 part matcha. Easy as pie. I’d recommend using a small measure such as a teaspoon. I made mine in tablespoons and it ended up being quite a bit of sugar. I’m sure I’ll find something delicious to use the rest for.

Green tea sugar

This springy green tea sugar is great for sprinkling over fresh fruit, or anywhere a little sweetness is needed.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 10 parts white sugar
• 1 part powdered matcha green tea

Cooking Directions

1. Whisk together sugar and matcha. Sprinkle on fresh fruit, buttered toast, or any way you use sprinkled sugar.
2. Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator or freezer.

Of course you don’t have to sprinkle it on blackberries either. I think it would be fantastic dusted over buttered toast, as a crunchy topping for donut muffins, or swirled into a lemonade. Just for fun-sies, I went ahead and used it to rim a glass of strawberry milk. Mmmmm!

Matcha green tea is one of my very favorite flavors and I’m always looking for new ways to inject it into the foods I love. It seems every time I make a new recipe, I find myself wondering if it would work in a matcha flavor. If I’ve learned anything so far, the answer is always YES.

What would you sprinkle this green tea sugar on?

April 18, 2013 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 15 comments

Somehow it’s always the simplest recipes that manage to throw me for a loop.

Remember this line from my recent post on the photo shoot where I first made these supposedly simple matcha bars?..

“The bars were based on a similar recipe that I’ve made countless times, so I knew they’d turn out. The only thing I was really trying to figure out with this test was how much matcha to use and how long to bake them.”

Yeah, well, I ended up needing to make these 4 times to get them right. It cannot be said that I don’t care about you guys. I guess tasting 4 different versions of matcha bars wasn’t too bad though. 😉

When I made them for Jimi at the photo shoot, they really did taste incredible. But it was clear that I’d over-baked them and I wondered if maybe omitting the almond meal would help the green tea flavor to stand out more. On my second attempt I replaced the almond meal with more flour and was pretty pleased with how the dough looked before baking. But then…I over-baked them again.

No matter! I’ll try again! And so I did with the same all-flour recipe and this time I managed to bake them correctly. Hooray!

But wait…this all-flour version is so dry. And the crumbles are the texture of sand, and the whole thing crumbles into a sandy mess when you try to take a forkful of it. On top of that, I hated the photos I had taken of it. The bars looked brown and drab, not bright and green and springy.

And here we are, come round full circle to the original recipe, just not over-baked. Finally. I swear they really are easy to make, I totally made it hard on myself for no reason.

I hope you try them. The subtle grassy tea note is mellowed perfectly by the sweet jam. I love to eat them warm while the jam is still all molten and melty. They would be excellent as an Easter dessert or brunch pastry.

I’ve had a hard time finding matcha in regular grocery stores that isn’t either of terrible quality or terribly expensive. I saw a single ounce being sold at Whole foods for $28. I don’t care how organic or artisan or made of magic it was, that’s a sucker price. I’ve been buying the 4oz. bag of this matcha from Amazon(full disclosure: this is an affiliate link) for less than $10 and have been really pleased with it. It may not be high quality enough for drinking, but it’s plenty nice for baking. I store it in the freezer between uses to keep it fresh and it’s been just as good as the day I bought it for several months now.

Mmmmm….jammy.

Have you ever baked with matcha (green tea powder) before?

March 27, 2013 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 12 comments