Matcha mousse, chocolate stout pudding and baked figs: More cupboard clear outs

After making matcha cookies a while ago, I still had a good bit of matcha left and no real idea what to do with it.

With a house move in the offing, I've got to try and get rid of all the bits and pieces cluttering up my cupboards. I decided that matcha was a prime candidate for the clear out!

But what do you do with matcha, beyond making cups of tea with it? Luckily, if you can think about it, someone on the internet has already beaten you to it, and wrote lots of helpful blog posts about all the things you can do with matcha.

Turns out it's like gaffa tape or vinegar: there are a million things you can do with it. The first thing that caught my eye though was matcha pudding: getting some soy milk, some chia seeds and some matcha, and leaving it in a tub to do its thing overnight.

Then voila, next day is chia matcha pudding day! It's all sort of minerally and thick and tasty. And, more importantly, it's bright green - if only I'd have made this on Hallowe'en!


The next recipe for clearing out your cupboard comes to you courtesy of a Times recipe (it's paywalled, so I can't link though either) by some celebrity chef or other.


I've had a bottle of chocolate vegan stout on hand to make it since forever, yet still haven't got round to cooking up this bad boy, or even drinking the stout, which is a mixture of idiocy and laziness that shouldn't be forgiven by anyone in a hurry. I hang my head in shame.

So, with a house move pending, I decided the time was ripe for a chocolate stout cake (or rather what was to turn out to be more like chocolate stout pudding). It was a mixture of chocolate, flour, sugar, vegan butter, chocolate stout and cocoa powder, baked in the oven in a water bath for a while.

I was expecting a cake, but it came out kind of moussey. There was also a really strong tang of the beer, very iron-y, in the background, which I couldn't decided if it was good or not. I mean, I like stout and I like cake, but you don't get me chucking chunks of pudding in my beer, so why try it the other way around?

Anyway, an interesting experiment, but maybe I'll keep my desserts and booze separate in future.


Other things that have been mysteriously hanging around in my kitchen for far too long, despite my extreme fondness for both, is a huge chunk of marzipan and some tiny pots of jam (a really cute wedding favour made by the mother of the groom at some nuptials I went to a couple of months ago).

I decided, what with figs being in season and still fairly cheap at the moment, was to try and make stuffed figs with cashew cream.

I split the figs, added a nugget of marzipan and a teaspoon of jam, and top with some soaked cashews blended with icing sugar, vanilla extract and a bit of water to make a creamy topping.

The figs, jam and marzipan turned into a big, thick, sticky hedonistic fruit mess. The cashew stuff went crispy and weird. Still, I ate the whole lot, so it can't have been too bad, eh?

Comments

  1. Your cupboard clear outs are starting to remind me of those food shows where the chefs try to make something out of random ingredients. What will you make next Chef Joey? :-)

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  2. Very interesting stuff! Way more inventive than I could ever do.
    The figs are particularly intriguing. I'm on the fence about cooked figs, though I like the dried a lot. maybe if you had mixed the marzipan, jam, and cashew cream all together it would have been a better texture.
    Bummer about the booze cake, too. I hate wasting good alcohol. I am a fan of booze in cookies and maybe other baked goods (Jameson cookies come to mind) but I don't trust myself enough to wing recipes.
    Very pretty matcha, I'm trying to get myself back into chia pudding.
    A+ for effort!

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  3. Wow, it sounds like not all of your experiments were wild successes taste-wise, but you certainly can't tell by the looks of them. Everything looks phenomenal! I always enjoy hearing about your cupboard cleaning!

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  4. Your cupboard seems more interesting than mine. Is that because I've long ago forgotten what's behind the doors? Your puddings look delicious, especially the chocolate one.

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  5. Cupboard cleanouts are such a mystery! You never know if your concoction will be good. I know you had some wonkiness this round, but everything looks so pretty!

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  6. I love matcha chia pudding and eat it for breakfast regularly :)
    The chocolate pudding looks so good but, like you, I'm not sure I'd be keen on the "beer-ines"

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  7. Those figs look incredible; if you hadn't said, I never would have suspected it wasn't delicious. I moved 2 years ago and it was such a nice feeling knowing everything that was in the recesses of my pantry, that I do a clean-out like this on the regular. I'm just not as creative...

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  8. I bought a little container of matcha at a Japanese shop in London last year...and I still haven't opened it. I don't know why I'm intimidated! I definitely want to make this pudding (right after I finally make green teat cupcakes!). I don't think I would be able to handle beery tastes in my chocolate, but the texture of that cake/mousse looks exactly up my street!

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    Replies
    1. Hahahah I meant 'tea' not teat now I'm hysterical. Green teat cupcakes bahahahaha

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  9. wow that sounds like fun experimenting - not sure about the matcha pudding (which is probably why I have hardly used my matcha - must try harder) but I love the sound of the chocolate pudding and the figs

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  10. Even after days of feasting for Thanksgiving and Chanukah, I could still devour a vat of that matcha pudding! It looks so cool and refreshing, and that gentle bitter edge would contrast perfectly with all that rich food. It's been ages since I last made chia pudding, so this is a very welcome (and tempting) reminder.

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