Hint of Green Tea Muffins
Have you ever played guessing games with international food products? You know, like when you’re in a store in a foreign country and see a great row of sauces (at least you think they are sauces) and the one using basil (or some kind of leaf, who knows) catches your eye. Do you buy it? That kind of fun uncertainty is what I felt when given a package from a family friend visiting from Tokyo not too long ago.
Usually the Japanese products that I buy have little English labels with the name of the product and nutrition info on it. However, this mystery package that I had contained not one word of English anywhere.
But even without English, I normally do fairly well with hiragana and katakana. But I was out of luck, all I saw was kanji galore. So I did what anyone else would do in this situation (or the night before Christmas), I shook the package.
Hmm, I thought it could possibly be the swish of green tea powder. And after noticing some abstract green squiggly lines on the package I surmised…what I had must be a beautiful package of matcha powder!
Imagine my surprise several months later when I was ready to start baking with it, I opened the package and found this instead.
I know some people grind up these loose green tea leaves and use it as a substitute for matcha, but I didn’t really want to do that. So what I did instead was brewed a nice strong cup of green tea, made some tweaks to the recipe, and came up with this mildly sweet muffin with just a hint of green tea.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 oz. plain lowfat yogurt
3 eggs
1/3 to 1/2 cup brewed green tea
1 tsp vanilla
DIRECTIONS
Brew a 1/2 cup of green tea. I used about 2 tsp of green tea leaves to 1 cup of water (1 cup instead of 1/2 so I could drink some while cooking). Set this aside.
In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat and all purpose flours, sugar, salt, and baking powder. In another bowl combine the yogurt, eggs, 1/3 cup green tea, vanilla, and softened butter. You can use a hand mixer or whisk to quickly get the lumps out.
Next combine both wet and dry ingredients and mix until it blends together. If the batter feels to thick (hard to stir), add a little more green tea to thin it out.
Pour into a lightly greased muffin pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes until light golden brown. Makes 10 to 12 muffins.
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9 comments - February 19, 2008
These green tea muffins sound good. Green tea is one of my favorite flavours and I have been wanting to try baking with it.
Oh yes I am easy prey when it comes to foodstuffs from a different country. Especially when I’m in the country and trying to figure out what to bring home! (Portugal was tough…I wanted all of the different cans of sardines!).
I am suppose to have a box of green tea powder from Kat, but it’s on Kauai! Hopefully, my boss (she had sent it to my old work place) didn’t use it all for himself. Grrrr…. These muffins look like just the thing for a quick breakfast (or snack)
You love Asian flavors, don’t you?
Your green tea muffins sound great. I want to get more into drinking all kinds of teas. Right now it’s just Lipton.
Hi Kevin,
Thanks, I also really like green tea. Normally I just drink it with dinner when I’m having Japanese food. But I thought I’d give this a try!
Hi rowena,
Yup, I’ve been storing these in the freezer and every morning I pop one out and warm it up in the microwave. Still very moist after reheating. And if it’s in the freezer instead of on the table, I don’t feel as strong an urge to eat 2 – 3 a day! I hope you’re able to get your green tea powder !
Hi Emiline,
Thanks! I do love Asian flavors. Well actually I like all kinds of local flavors from Hawaii. Asian food happens to have a strong influence here so it’s what I grew up with. I do love all kinds of other food too though. I’m equal opportunity!
I really like using the green tea muffin mix from Trader Joe’s. I was surprised of the good flavor it has for $1.99. It is well liked by both children and adults. I’ll be sure to share some with you in October.
Hi Kristy,
That’s a really good price. I bet it tastes way better than mine. This recipe has just a very faint taste of green tea. When I get the time I’ll rework this recipe using matcha powder for more green tea flavor. Looking forward to trying the Trader Joe one in October!
i used to buy trader joe’s green tea muffin mix…they seem to not sell it anymore!
so i looked online for recipes and found this one…i tried it with a few extra stuff added (japanese cherry green tea, diced maraschino cherries, and green food coloring to make it greener)…it came out SO GOOD! my friend already asked me for the recipe! thank you for posting this! 
Hi tracy,
You’re welcome, glad you enjoyed it!
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