Grean Tea Loaf

Since coming back, I've been craving simple eats. Result: Green Tea Loaf. It's a simple loaf, clean, earthy, and tasty. Can't forget the most important part -- it's GREEN!

Adding green tea to the flour.


Soft peaks...


Smoothing the top before going into the oven...


Recipe from the Green Tea Co:

ingredients

2 cups bleached all-purpose four
2 tablespoons Matcha green tea
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 sticks soft unsalted butter
2 cups confectioners' sugar
5 large eggs, separated
Pinch of salt

directions

1. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan and line with buttered parchment or wax paper—cut to fit. Set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 325F. Combine the flour, green tea and baking powder and stir well to mix.
2. Cream butter and confectioners sugar in bowl of mixer with paddle attachment and beat for about 3 minutes or until light. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping bowl and beater occasionally with a rubber spatula. Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the flour mixture by hand, with a rubber spatula.
3. Pour the egg whites and salt into a clean, dry mixer bowl. Place on mixer with whisk attachment and whip whites on medium speed until white and opaque and just beginning to hold their shape. Increase speed slightly and continue whipping egg whites until they hold a soft peak.
4. Remove bowl from mixer and quickly scrape whites from bowl onto batter in other bowl. Use a large rubber spatula to fold the egg whites into the batter, folding just until no streaks of white remain.
5. Scrape the batter into prepared pans and smooth the top. Bake the cakes for about 45 minutes (35-40 minutes for mini loaf pans) or until it is well risen and a toothpick inserted in the center emerges dry. Cool the cakes in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes, then un-mold and cool it completely.

Lemon Blueberry Crumble Bars

I went to the market yesterday to see what fruits/berries were on sale and to my pleasant surprise, 1 pint of blueberries were on sale for $1.99! Yeah, you read that right, $1.99!! So I bought 3 pints and starting thinking of things I could do with them. My mom thought I was crazy to bring home so many blueberries, but she knows by now that they will be put to good use.

So here we are again, Lemon Blueberry Crumble Bars. One of the easiest desserts I have ever made. I didn't even use my stand mixer, only the tools that God naturally gave to me --my hands. Okay, I cheated and used a fork too.

I knew I should've checked all my ingredients before making this dessert, but the ingredients were simple and I figured I had all the essentials. Little did I know that I only had 1 cup of flour left in my pantry! Luckily, I had exactly 2 cups of cake flour leftover and used that. It didn't seem to make any difference. I used the zest of 2 lemons and the juice of 1 because I like a strong lemon flavor with blueberries. But other than that, I followed the rest of the instructions exactly.

Here's the mixture before popping them into the oven...


Lemon Blueberry Crumble Bars
Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 cup cold butter (2 sticks)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 4 cups of fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 4 tsp cornstarch

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375 and grease a 9x13 pan.

1. In a medium bowl stir together 1 cup of sugar, 3 cups of flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of the dough into the pan. Save the other half for the topping.
2. In another bowl, stir together sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle evenly over the crust. Crumble the remaining dough over the berry layer.
3. Bake in the oven for 45 min, or until the top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.