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Mason Matcha-Misu, originally uploaded by jaxies.

I know, I only posted yesterday, but this one I just kinda wanted to show off a little. I’m also going to be a real bitch about it, because the recipe is still in development so I’m not actually going to tell you how to make it!…yet. The photo just turned out so nicely…

May I present to you the Mason Matcha-Misu, a matcha, pistachio and white chocolate tiramisu that I created especially for David, based on and adapted from his family’s mocha tiramisu recipe. On my birthday weekend back in February he actually rocked up to Nottingham holding a giant bowl of said mocha tiramisu for me, which it then took about three days to eat. It was a lovely birthday surprise. In return then, it was his birthday a couple of Sundays ago and I created my version just in time, made him a birthday video and showed it to him, then styled and photographed it, emailed it to him… then ate it. HA. Well I was enjoying it so that he could enjoy it vicariously through me…?

Making this recipe I was faced with a few challenges. The first was that in the original recipe David uses hazelnut chocolate, and when we were discussing the version I was going to create (we’d been talking about this idea for a while) we wondered whether we could find white chocolate with pistachios. After a quick Google search we found Amedei I Frutti, Toscano White with Pistachio – a white chocolate bar “laced” with pistachios (you have to read the full description on the page of the bar, it’s hilarious). It was hilarious that there was actually such a thing in existence, so after checking to make sure the site wasn’t a scam, I ordered two bars and a couple of days later they arrived. Chocolate problem solved.

The second challenge was that the original recipe calls for Bailey’s as the alcohol of choice. Now Bailey’s ain’t gonna work with matcha green tea, so I searched high and low, racking my brains for a substitute, when one day, purely by chance, I found a bottle of white chocolate liqueur. Bingo. The sweetness, however, would mean using less, but that’s okay, this one was my experiment. Liqueur problem solved.

The final challenge was that I decided to make my own sponge fingers and that instead of plain sponge fingers they were going to be matcha sponge fingers. Now they’re not hard to make, but doi, silly me, thought it would be easier to make them on my silicone baking tray instead of a regular baking tray. That means they’re not going to stick. If they don’t stick when you turn the tray upside down to tap off the excess icing sugar then they’re going to fall off the tray. Cue turning the silicone baking tray over and one big green mess all over my kitchen counter. So when I managed to scoop them back onto my silicone baking tray what I was left with were about 12 vaguely green (needed more matcha) messes of sponge finger mix, in what looked like various sized dog-poo shapes. So attractive. To solve the dog-poo problem, when they were baked and had cooled down somewhat, I used a bread knife to trim the edges and make them a little more uniform. I also used those edges to fill in the awkward gaps in the mould. So it shouldn’t have been a problem, but it was, solved.

So the final product and the taste test. Altogether, a pretty good first try. It was creamy and tasty, the pistachios worked really nicely, but there wasn’t quite enough alcohol. I mean, c’mon. Tiramisu should be boozy, right? If it’s not I think your tiramisu has failed fundamentally. There also wasn’t quite enough matcha flavour (I only put a little into the cream mixture because I wasn’t sure how much I really needed) and actually, although white chocolate goes really nicely with matcha, it was almost a little too sweet and needed something else to temper it out. So I’ve got some ideas, and there are some things I’m still working on, but the next version should be perfect, and when it is, promise I’ll share. I can’t leave you on tenterhooks after showing you this, right? I’ve also promised David that when it’s absolutely perfect I’ll send it to him so that he can make it and try it out himself/have me make it for him the next time I see him.

Anyway, just a small glimpse into my mind during Recipe Darevelopment, probably mostly not all that interesting and I can guarantee you that I will be making this several times over before I declare it perfect, but if you were bored during this post just look back at the food porn at the top of this post and think, ‘ooooh, aaaah, yeah baby, I want to nom that…’

Until next time, peace and love.

Jax x