Matcha and white chocolate pots
Green tea and white chocolate, set softly in a glass
plus 2 hours setting
Doubles into four small glasses in the same pan of cream, and the setting time does not change however many pots you fill.
White chocolate melted into hot cream sets into something close to a firm custard once it is cold, without an egg anywhere near it. Matcha turns that pale mixture a startling, saturated green the moment it is whisked through properly, a colour a spoon of chopped herb could never manage on this diet. Sift it first, or flecks of it sit stubbornly on the surface rather than dissolving in. A teaspoon is tea rather than a spice, ground fine enough to disappear completely into the cream, and it carries a faint savoury edge that keeps the white chocolate from tasting only of sugar. A spoonful of plain cream on top softens that edge further.
Ingredients
Contains: Milk
- 200 mldouble cream, 160 ml for the pots, the rest lightly whipped to serve
- 150 gwhite chocolate, plain, chopped small
- 1 tspmatcha, sifted through a fine sieve
Method
Heat 160 ml of the cream in a small pan over a medium heat until steaming, with small bubbles forming at the edge, not boiling.
Take the pan off the heat, add the chopped white chocolate, and leave for 2 minutes without stirring. Then stir gently from the centre outward until completely smooth and pale ivory, with no fleck of unmelted chocolate left.
Sift the matcha into a small bowl. Whisk in a spoonful of the warm chocolate cream until you have a smooth green paste with no dry lumps, then whisk this paste back into the rest of the cream until the colour is even throughout, a deep, saturated green with no pale streak left.
Whisking a little cream into the matcha first, before it meets the whole bowl, is what stops it going gritty. Skipping this step is the most common way a matcha drink or pudding turns out lumpy.
Divide between two small glasses or pots. Cool at room temperature for 15 minutes, then cover and chill for at least 2 hours, until softly set with a gentle give when you press the surface.
Whip the remaining cream to soft peaks and spoon a little onto each pot just before serving.
Watch-points
- Sift the matcha before you whisk it in, and keep whisking until every trace of green powder has dissolved into the cream, with nothing gritty left on the spoon.
- Use plain white chocolate with no fruit or nut pieces in it.
- Cover the pots once they are cold, keep them in the fridge and eat them within two days. Eat them the day you make them if you are having chemotherapy.
Some hospitals do not name matcha on their list at all; the leaflet this book follows allows tea, and a sifted teaspoon whisked in fully behaves the same way as the tea already on the page. Leave it out if you have been told to.
Stoma note: Matcha carries a little caffeine. In the small amount used here it is unlikely to cause problems, but leave it out if caffeine has loosened things for you before.
Make it more nourishing
- Use 180 g of white chocolate instead of 150 g for a firmer, richer set.
- Stir a tablespoon of skimmed milk powder into the cream as it warms, for about 3 g more protein that the white chocolate covers completely.
- Fold 2 tablespoons of mascarpone into the cream you whip for the top, for a thicker spoonful and more calories in the same mouthful.
Swaps
- Instead of chopped white chocolate, use white chocolate buttons or callets
- they are an even size, so they melt through the hot cream with far less stirring
- Instead of the whipped cream on top, use a spoonful of thick smooth yoghurt
- sharper against the sweetness, and it holds its shape on the surface just as well