Japanese Green Tea Pudding

I had a sudden crave for Matcha (Green Tea) Pudding the other night. To my surprise, this creamy delicate dessert is incredibly easy to make.

I went through several recipes online. Some calling for heavy cream which I found a little too dense to my taste. After several attempts, I settled on this one by Just One Cookbook.

Matcha (Green Tea) Pudding
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ tablespoon green tea (matcha) powder
• 5 g (1 2/3 teaspoon) gelatin powder
• 2 tablespoon hot water
• 1 ¼ cup (300 ml) whole milk
• ¼ cup (4 tablespoon., 50 g) granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoon (40 g) anko (red bean paste)

Instructions:

1. Sift the green tea powder through a fine mesh strainer and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together gelatin powder with hot water.
3. Bring water to a simmer in a small saucepan and place the gelatin mixture bowl in the saucepan, stir occasionally. Once the gelatin is completely dissolved, turn off the heat and set aside.
4. Heat milk in a pan over medium heat until small bubbles gather up around the edge of the pan. Turn off the heat.
5. Add sugar into milk and whisk well to dissolve all the sugar.
6. Add 3 tablespoon of milk mixture to strained green tea (matcha) powder, whisk until smooth, making sure there are no clumps or trace of dry powder.
7. Combine the rest of milk mixture with green tea mixture, blend well.
8. Add dissolved gelatin liquid into the mixture and whisk well.
9. In a small bowl, pour just enough green tea mixture onto anko/red bean paste, and mix to loose up the paste. Divide the paste into 4 serving cups.
10. Pour green tea mixture on top. Chill in the refrigerator for several hours before serving.

Note:

1. Canned anko/red bean paste can be found in Asian grocery stores. It is also easy to make using organic red beans following this recipe. The benefit of making your own anko paste is that you can control the texture.
2. Nami recommends using gelatin sheet in place of gelatin powder. I was able to find gelatin sheet at PFI in Seattle, but that’s not always the case. You can also get them online from Amazon.com.
3. For variation, instead of dropping anko paste to the bottom of the serving cup and pour green tea mixture on top, it can also be placed on top of the pudding mixture, as in this recipe, which works better with un-mashed (Tsubuan -style) beans.