Matcha-misu

Felicia and I love matcha desserts. Over a year ago, Felicia decided to make a matcha version of tiramisu. We were surprised how good it tasted on the first try! It was almost too easy that we decided to play around with the recipe to improve it. We tried adding matcha powder to the cream mixture, upping the mascarpone, omitting the corn starch, thinning out the matcha water… In the end, we decided it only needed one minor edit (using 1/2 cup more heavy cream so you can just use the full pint while improving the cream to cookie ratio). To almost quote Voltaire, cheers to not letting perfect be the enemy of great!

Matcha-misu

Makes one 8″ x 8″ dish

Ingredients

1 ½ tbsp + 1 tbsp matcha powder
1/3 cup water, hot
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
8 oz mascarpone
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 tbsp corn starch
24 lady fingers

Directions

In a small bowl, whisk together 1 ½ tbsp of matcha powder with the hot water. Set aside.
In a small saucepan, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. Whisk in the milk and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. When you start to see steam evaporating from the top of the liquid surface (about 5 minutes), remove from heat.
In a large bowl, pour the warm egg yolk mixture over the cold mascarpone. Let this sit for a few minutes and then whisk till smooth (note: it’s important that the egg yolk mixture is warm so the cold mascarpone whisks in smoothly; the resultant mixture should be slightly cool).
In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream and cornstarch with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Add the whipped cream to the mascarpone mixture and gently whisk the two together until the custard cream is smooth and fully combined.
In an 8″x8″ dish (or whatever combination of glassware you have), layer half of the lady fingers in the bottom of the dish. Spoon half of the matcha water mixture over the lady fingers. Layer half of the cream mixture. Repeat. Dust the top with the remaining 1 tbsp of matcha powder. Let chill at least 8 hours or overnight before serving.