One of the biggest uses of my blog is for me to find recipes so I don’t forget them.

While I usually search to find a dessert that has a component I need, here are direct links to those base recipes: Switching out flavors for these recipes is super easy. Literally just add it. They’re pretty robust and won’t be bothered by an addition of more liquid or powder. Exception is macarons. See that link for my pointers on that.

Can never go wrong with some matcha macarons. I’ve made them lots of times, but here’s a post dedicated to them :p. This is my updated recipe that I use (taken from the awesome Botegga Tinnie). Hollows have always plagued me and this recipe and a low and slow bake mostly fix this for me.

Update Jan 2020, lately I’ve been doing 305F for 20min. once again you just nead to learn your oven (going to leave this recipe at 285 though). See my notes in my General Macarons Recipe for the most up to date.

Tres leches cakes are so yummy. So is Thai tea, so why not both! And also, why not layered! (well, it’s annoying, so that’s why not..but I tried anyways).

Recipe is adapted from Allrecipes Tres Leches cake. Looks long but it’s pretty straightforward.

1. Thai Tea Cake:

• 190g flour
• 5 g baking powder
• 112 g butter (stick), room temp
• 200 g granulated sugar
• 5 eggs
• 3 g vanilla extract
• 20 g Thai tea mix, ground up

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease your pans.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, and ground up Thai tea mix.
3. Cream butter and sugar. Once incporated, add in vanilla extact and eggs.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, a little at a time.
5. Distribute evenly to multiple pans (I think I did ~180g across 4 pans).
6. Bake for 20-25 min until a toothpick comes out cleanly.
7. Remove cakes onto a large baking tray. They’l probably shrink a bit and should come out easily due to greasing.

2. Thai Tea Milk Mixture:

Flan is one of the easiest things to make, so why not flavor it! Here’s a simple recipe for a matcha flavored one. Any flavoring works (or none at all) and it’s super delicious.

1. Caramel (dry):

• enough granulated sugar to coat the bottom of your pan (~60-100g?)

1. Add sugar to a saucepan and heat on high.
2. Leave alone and then when it starts melting, you can mix to make sure it’s heating evenly.
3. Once it has reached a nice level of carmelization, pour into the bottom of your pan.

2. Matcha Custard:

I started out trying to make other flavors of egg tarts and now I’m addicted. Here are some matcha caramel ones that are super yummy! The shortcrust is adapted from The Kitchn and the custard is adapted from Guai Shu Shu.

1. Pâte Sablée: (about 20 2.5in tarts)

• 168 g butter (1.5 stick), room temp
• 63 g powdered sugar
• 1.5 large egg yolk
• 4 g salt
• 213 g all purpose flour

1. Beat butter and sugar until creamy.
2. Beat in egg yolk.
3. Add flour and salt. Mix on low speed and don’t overmix.
4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hr.
5. Let soften on counter.
6. Preheat oven to 360F. Roll out to circle between two sheets of wax paper.
7. Cut out circles and transfer to tart pan/ rings.
8. If dough is soft, chill in fridge or freezer for a few minutes.
9. Dock the crust with a fork and bake for 10 - 15 minutes. Flatten crust once it’s out of the oven. You want to half - 3/4 bake it, so if too light, bake for a little longer.

2. Caramel (dry) Sauce:

Here’s the recipe, which is a variant of my other crepe cakes recipes.

1. Passion Fruit Crepes: [25-30 8in crepes] 

• 650 g milk, at least room temperature!
• 240 g flour
• 10 g passion fruit puree (I buy frozen puree from Mexican supermarkets and reduce down)
• 90 g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 50 g butter, melted 

1. If milk isn’t at room temperature, put into a medium saucepan and heat briefly.
2. Sift flour into a large bowl.
3. Add sugar and whisk briefly.
4. Add in eggs and mix. The batter is a bit thick at this point.
   • If you want to reduce the yellowness of the eggs, you can first mix the egg yolks separately with the sugar, then add that + egg whites to the flour.
5. Now add the milk to the batter, slowly at a time. Once about half the milk is added, take time to mix thoroughly. Add the rest of the milk and mix.
6. Add the seedless passion fruit puree (sieve it) and mix. I only wanted the slightest bit of passion fruit here since I knew it may mess up the consistency. The flavor will mostly come from the diplomat cream.
7. Add melted butter and mix fully.
8. Pour mixture through a sieve. The batter will be a runny consistency. Cling wrap and throw into fridge for at least 30 minutes. Longer is better.
9. Use two pans or more (you’ll thank me later). You want to make sure your pan is always greased before adding batter. For my greaser, I use a spatula wrapped in a napkin that’s taped on top and dip it into melted butter. On low heat, allow pan to warm up, grease, and add some butter and add a small amount of batter. I use a 1/3 cup scooper and fill it 2/3 of the way up (so 2/9 cup). It takes some trial and error to figure out the right amount to cover your pan. Between crepes, I take the pan off an place it only a wet kitchen towel, so that when I add the crepe batter, it’s able to spread a bit before cooking.
10. When the edges of the crepe become dry (a minute or so), flip over and cook for a short while longer (<1 minute).
11. Repeat.
12. To get a consistent size, place a bowl or something circular over the crepe and cut off excess scraps.
13. Let crepes cool completely before assembling. 

2. Passion Fruit Diplomat Cream:

Name is a slight misnomer since it’s just a normal raindrop cake with matcha and not a matcha flavored one :p. Raindrop cakes are basically just like eating water jello. haha. BUT, with a good sauce and powder they can be super elevated :D. Took me a while to find a ratio, but this is what worked in my hands.

1. Raindrop Cake:

• 1 g agar agar
• 10 g sugar
• 360 g filtered water

1. Add everything into a pot and heat up want until it just starts to boil and everything is dissolved.
2. Cool down and pour into round bottomed small containers or hemisphere molds.
3. Let cool in the fridge.
4. If using cherry blossoms, add those in right after you fill the molds.
5. Be careful when unmolding.

2. Matcha Kinako blend:

Tarts are quite delicious so I wanted to pair something with matcha. It takes quite a while, so just a heads up! The rich shortcrust is adapted from The Kitchn. I don’t remember where the other recipes originally came from. I’ve been adapting them each iteration. This recipe is for about 7-8 3in tarts.

1. Rich Shortcrust Pastry:

• 224 g butter (2 sticks), room temp
• 84 g powdered sugar
• 2 large egg yolk
• 6 g salt (1/2 tsp)
• 142 g all purpose flour
• 20 g milk, if needed

1. Beat butter and sugar until creamy.
2. Beat in egg yolks.
3. Add flour and salt, while mixing at low speed. Don’t overmix. If it looks dry, add some milk.
4. Chill dough in plastic wrap for at least 1 hour in the fridge. I did overnight.
5. Let soften on counter. Once soft, fraction into smaller pieces. Roll out between two sheets of wax paper.
6. Cut out circles and fit to tart molds/ rings. For my tart rings, I did two separate cut outs. One circle for the base and one strip of dough for the side.
7. Use a fork to make lots of holes in the base and then chill for 30 minutes or so. Preheat the oven to 375F.
8. Bake for about 40 minutes. Check in on them around the 30 min mark.

2. Matcha Coconut Cream:

I first made these by accident, but loved how they turned out. Quite interesting texture and yummy (albeit, a bit sweet). They’re just lava cake batter, baked all the way through!

1. Thai Tea white chocolate base:

• 69 g white chocolate
• 20 g butter
• 40 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 25 g flour
• *35 g Thai tea
  • 75 g water
  • 15 g Thai tea mix

2. Ube white chocolate base:

UPDATE 2019 I now use 55 g almond flour, 50 g powdered sugar, 45 g egg whites, 45 g granulated sugar and bake for 25 min at 285F. See my notes in my General Macarons Recipe for the most up to date.

Update Jan 2020, lately I’ve been doing 305F for 20min. once again you just nead to learn your oven (going to leave this recipe at 285 though). See my notes in my General Macarons Recipe for the most up to date.