Matcha Blondies: Or Is That Greenies?
Wow your friends and work colleagues with these green cakes. Quick and easy to make, these matcha blondies are more sophisticated than your average brownie or blondie recipe. They’re also totally scrumptious.
As some of you may have noticed, since trying matcha in baking a few years ago, with this matcha, rhubarb and chocolate cake, I’ve become rather a fan. Matcha, which is somewhat bitter with umami notes offsets the sweetness of the sugar nicely.
I was recently overtaken by a craving for something sweet which made me realise I’d never made matcha blondies. Game, set and matcha.
Matcha Blondies
Blondies are basically brownies made with white chocolate in lieu of dark chocolate or cocoa. These matcha blondies are in fact very green and should perhaps be called greenies. What do you think?
Look away now if you’re trying to avoid sugar. There is an awful lot of it in this recipe. I like to think some of the sugar rush effect is mitigated by the healthy matcha, wholemeal spelt and real free-range eggs. But I’m probably kidding myself.
Matcha, which is a Japanese powdered green tea, is reckoned to contain all sorts of nutritional benefits. It’s also quite expensive, so I don’t actually bake with it as much as I’d like. Helen over at Fuss Free Flavours was kind enough to send me a tin recently, so I happened to have some to hand.
This is such an easy bake to make, with little fuss or mess. It’s all done in the saucepan so washing up is minimal. Win win.
Whether you call these matcha blondies, brownies or greenies, they are just as delicious as I’d hoped. As you’d expect, they are more sophisticated than your average version of a brownie or blondie.
The matcha is an excellent foil for the sweetness of the bake and the bits of white chocolate caramelise most scrumptiously. The texture is slightly squidgy and becomes almost fudge like by the next day. In fact, these are best made the day before you need them.
Other Sweet Matcha Bakes You Might Like
- Chocolate and matcha battenberg via Tin and Thyme
- Matcha & white chocolate cake via Kavey Eats
- Christmas butter biscuits via Tin and Thyme
- Matcha madeleines via Tin and Thyme
- Coconut matchmisu via Fuss Free Flavours
- Matcha marmalade cakes via Tin and Thyme
- Green tea macarons via Emily’s Recipes and Reviews
- Matcha white chocolate cupcakes via Tin and Thyme
- Triple layer matcha chocolate cake via Tin and Thyme
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make my matcha blondies, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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Choclette x
Why not pin the image below for a handy reminder of the recipe.
Matcha Blondies
Ingredients
- 140 g unsalted butter, (5oz)
- 200 g white chocolate (7oz)
- 1 pinch sea salt
- 225 g golden caster sugar (8oz) (I used vanilla sugar)
- 2 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
- 100 g wholemeal spelt flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 20 g matcha green tea powder (¾oz)
Instructions
- Place the butter and 150g of the chocolate into a large saucepan and melt over a very gently heat.
- Remove from the heat and beat in the sugar and salt.
- Beat in the eggs, one by one, then sieve in the dry ingredients and stir.
- Roughly chop the remaining chocolate and stir into the mix.
- Pour into a 20cm (8") sq silicon mould or lined tin and bake in the centre of the oven at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4)for about 30 minutes or until well risen, but with a slight wobble in the middle.
- Allow to cool, then cut into 12 squares or 9 bars depending on how big you like your brownies.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
These are my submission to this month’s We Should Cocoa, which is Anything Goes. You still have until midnight on 28th to enter any recipes you’ve posted this month that include chocolate in some way, shape or form.
I’m also sending them to Love Cake with Ness at JibberJabberUK. The theme is Garden Party. I reckon these green matcha blondies with their camouflage fatigues would blend right in to a garden’s verdant growth. You could play hunt the cake! Note to self: draw a map first.
These matcha blondies also go to Baking Explorer and Cakeyboi for Treat Petite where Anything Goes this month.
It’s been a long time since I linked up with #CookBlogShare, but here goes. Snap Happy Bakes is hosting this month and it’s managed by Hijacked by Twins.
I don’t like Matcha, I know it sounds strange but these look so lovely maybe I can convince myself otherwise.
Matcha is an acquired taste Nayna, but it’s quite different in a bake to drinking it.
I love adding matcha to bakes, we always have a tin of it in the fridge. These blondes look so deliciously moist! Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
Thanks Kirsty, it really is a fab ingredients for baking.
These look so interesting. I want one!! Thanks for linking to #CookBlogShare
They are interesting and a bit of an acquired taste, but it doesn’t take that long to acquire it 😉
I’ve never cooked with matcha tea before. There’s a cake club meeting coming up soon with a tea theme so I may have to get some and do some baking!
These would be fab for a tea themed cake club. Brownies are always popular so hopefully these would be too.
Oh I love the sound of greenies! This has got me thinking about whether something like this would work with a green veg instead of matcha. Must experiment! #CookBlogShare
Oh indeed it should work with green veg Mandy. I’ve seen a great cake made with spinach and I made these nettle cupcakes which were a lovely shade of green – /2014/05/nettle-lemon-and-white-chocolate/
I’ve never tried matcha but I’d love one of these ‘greenies’! Thanks for linking them up with #TreatPetite
Thanks Kat, they were the sort of things it’s quite dangerous to have in the house 😉
Ohhhh my gosh yes please. If there’s one thing I love more than brownies, it’s blondies – and I love that these are such a cool colour! They look perfectly moist and squidgy.
Thanks Becca. Definitely squidgy, cos that’s the way I like them 🙂
Greenies!! Brilliant – that should so be a thing!!! A new trend for sure?!? I love the idea of the bitter/umami notes offsetting the sweetness of cake. Must try that as I usually find cake too sweet these days (downside of eating less sugar…everything sweet just tastes too sweet now!) Thanks for sharing, will be watching out for #greenies trending any day now 🙂 Eb x
I know exactly what you mean Eb. I’ve always tended to use less sugar than the standard and find bought cakes horrendously sweet. Brownies (or did I mean greenies?) are one of the few things I still chuck a lot of sugar at, as they just wouldn’t be brownies otherwise. Off to check if #greenies is trending yet 😉
Ohh this I’d love these! Thanks for including my recipe too x
I’m a wee bit biased Emily, but I have to say they are delicious.
Love these greenies! I think you’ve coined a new name there. I have some matcha I haven’t opened yet, think I will have to try these as my maiden matcha bake.
Oh yes Lucy, do try them. They have quite a distinctive taste, so you might want to try a small batch first, just in case!
Ooo I do like the look of these ‘greenies’ (and love the name!) 😀 Love using matcha in desserts for a green hue. They look so dense and moist!
Yay, a fellow matcha fan. I love the colour, but I’m a big fan of the flavour too.
Aah these looks gorgeous, you know I’m a fellow matcha fiend – I adore that grassy and umami flavour and it’s so lovely balanced with the sweetness of white chocolate!
Thanks Kavey. Yes indeed, my thoughts exactly. I got the umami, but grassy is a good way of describing the flavour too.
They look ‘special’ in a hulky sort of way. Wonder what they taste like. Matcha powder is indeed quite expensive here too. Maybe I’ll give them a go ….
Hahaha, ‘hulky’ indeed Henk! You didn’t mean macho did you 😉 If it wasn’t so expensive, I’d bake with matcha a lot more.
Matcha’s great but I have to hide it in things as I don’t like it on its own in water. I’m sure I could force some blondies down 🙂
Being such a bright green, it’s hard to hide. The flavour of these is quite strong too, so if you did try making them, you might want to halve the amount.
I’ve heard so many great things about match and yet I’ve never tried it. Given that you’ve said that it helps to off-set the sweetness in your fab blondies (but I love the name greenies for them) I really should give it a whirl.
Angela x
It has a very distinctive taste Angela, but it’s well worth trying for the fab colour. If you’re not a green tea fan, you could use a smaller amount and see how you go.
Greenie sounds like a perfect term for these awesome treats!
Awesome is a good word for them Angie – naughty too 😉
These look super! I love Matcha, and really should use it more… It’s so expensive though, worth it in these treats I imagine!
Oh, but what would Fanny think? You can buy a lower grade matcha for baking purposes, but you’re right, it’s not for everyday use.