being a matcha lover in Finland is hard. not because you can’t get matcha products, but they’re still quite rare here as there is no big matcha trend like in Asia. this means that while there are stores here that sells matcha products, the prices are almost always quite expensive. one store sells a matcha mini kit kat pack of 12 for about 7.50€, another sells the regular matcha pocky for 4€. well, you get the idea.
and the matcha powder that i usually use for baking? it costs about 18-22€ for a 30 grams pack. that’s a lot of money for a small amount of powder, in my opinion. and in my dictionary, that means every recipe made out of it has to be successful, there’s no margin for error! so we passed 2016 without baking any matcha things (thankfully last year we went to Indonesia and Singapore. oooh, the matcha galore!).
but now when i saw this recipe from The Tummy Train, i couldn’t help it anymore. we decided to go and get the matcha powder, and even the soufflé bowls since we didn’t have any. and let me remind you before we go forward that i am a true novice in baking, and have never in my life made anything even near a soufflé!
the pressure was now on, but as i usually am in sewing, in baking i’m also so determined to not let anything go to waste. i did everything by the recipe, and things were going great until i had to make the meringue. it refused to be stiff and i was almost ready to give up until my husband found out from the internet that the problem could have been when i was separating the yolk and the egg whites. that’s what it clicked that i did accidentally let some of the yolks into the egg whites, thinking it wouldn’t really matter! well what do you know, little things DO matter in this recipe! thankfully i had extra eggs so i started making the meringue from the beginning again, this time really making sure that none of the yolk went into the egg whites. it worked like a charm! i had no idea making a meringue can be so fun! 😀
so then it was time to put the mixture into the bowls… and found out that our bowls are probably a lot bigger than the ones used in the recipe. i used 11 cm (in diameter) wide & 6 cm deep bowl, and guess how many bowls this recipe filled? T W O. all those work for 2 bowls of soufflé!
ah well, the show must go on. this was after all only my first time of making a soufflé, so i kept my cool and put them into the oven anyway.
fresh from the oven!
when they came out… they looked pretty! okay, maybe the right one was slightly burned, but whatever! (fyi, it was about 10 pm when i finished making this, so anything goes!)
a sprinkle of icing sugar to make them look prettier
soon it was time for the truth: the texture & taste!
the texture looked correct (yay!), so i dove straight in. it was good! but, of course i found another mistake. since there was no telling what kind of matcha powder used in the original recipe, and no telling how strong or faint the powder i’m using for this recipe, i ended up using 2 tablespoons of the powder (which is like the maximum in the recipe). it turned out to be too much! next time i’m going to only put 1 tablespoon, because otherwise the soufflé is going to be too bitter. and for the record, i always use Kabuse matcha powder no. 1 for baking.
but nonetheless, since the texture of the soufflé itself is so airy and light, we finished them in no time, bittersweet and all.
the end verdict is that this was a nice change from our usual green tea muffins, but considering all the work, it’s best to be ‘saved’ for more special occasions. but hey… i made my very first soufflé! yippie!
Step Into The Silver Rain 
Félicitations!! It certainly looks good and nice 😀
Happy for the success > as proven by them being finished in no time …. Keep the spirit up for sewing, cooking, baking!! All nice “adventures” 😀
merci! 😀 i just made the second batch a few hours ago, since we still had all the ingredients. made it with half the amount of matcha as the first one, and it came out perfect! ❤
Love love matcha! Souffle is pretty hard to make right? It is the same here with matcha, pretty expensive so when I used them I do it sparingly. Also people here not all of them welcome “green” things..
i love matcha, too! i think it’s basically not that hard to make soufflé, but you need to do certain things quickly & pay close attention to details. thankfully the recipe i followed had pictures and the instructions were very clear. 🙂
huh, i wonder why people there don’t always welcome ‘green’ things? do you mean like veggie/healthy stuffs or just anything green in colour?
I mean matcha green, on sweet stuff, not sure…maybe thought the idea of tea as a flavour us weird, or they thought it as food colouring etc..
ah, i see. that’s interesting! i heard from a friend (Indonesian living in UK) that even the thought of drinking iced tea is still generally unacceptable? this was more than 10 years ago though, don’t know how it is these days, sorry if i’m wrong! 😀 but don’t you have green pistachio cakes/chocolates there? how are they accepted there?
Hmm iced tea is coming on in London. Yes but the green of pistachio cake is not as green as the matcha, I think its coming on, they will love it soon… hehehehe
oh dear, let’s hope it’s not that long of a road for green tea there! 😀 there is a bigger hope for Finland, i guess (for green tea trend), since people here are more & more interested in healthy stuffs (green tea products are usually sold in health stores!) and the hipsters are plentiful. 😀 we shall see how it goes, hee hee!
Congrats 🙂 They look very beautiful and delicious. I have never made a soufflé and think I dare not even think of trying it.
thank you! you know, i was so nervous too before i made these, and had to read the recipe 3 times before i started! 😀 like i wrote on the previous comment, i was lucky to find a very thorough & clear recipe & instructions! 🙂 hope one day you will decide to try some soufflé recipe as well!
Wonderful!! ❤ It was tricky yet satisfying when finally the result came out well. 😀 Mine was so fluffy at the beginning, but sank pretty much after a few minutes outside the oven XD Perhaps because I use gluten free flour or maybe because I substitute the whipping cream with cream cheese. But the cream cheese goes sooo well with the matcha that I can't make matcha souffle without it anymore. XD But your souffle is rising really well, I envy!
thank you! ah, i didn’t know about matcha + cream cheese, thanks for the tip! 🙂 and i don’t know how i got the souffle to rise that well, i didn’t even tap the bowls or put my finger between the bowl & the mixture or anything…. i only put a great dollop of the butter inside the bowl, LOL. 😀 my second batch of these soufflé was rising even better than this, i almost thought it would jump out the bowls, haha!
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