Matcha Pistachio Muffins

I should have made these matcha muffins for St. Paddy’s Day. Just look at how green they are. Luscious green. They remind me of the meadow …. and, of Oscar the Grouch. Haha. Green, duh. As a bonus, these muffins are light, delicious and with matcha as the star ingredient, I’d like to think healthy too.

Matcha (green tea powder) is an acquired taste – you either love it or hate it. Like marmite. But unlike marmite which I totally dislike – yucks! (sorry marmite lovers), matcha, I love.

I’ve been making these matcha muffins quite a lot lately. I tell myself that matcha is antioxidant and green so that covers one of my 5-a day. As if.

But seriously, they’re good. If you love matcha, you should try this recipe.

This time, I added some chopped salted pistachio for added crunch and taste.

• 140g all-purpose flour
• 70g butter
• 110g sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 pinch salt
• 100ml buttermilk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp matcha
• ½ cup pistachio, roughly chopped

Beat the butter and sugar until white and fluffy.

As always, when making a small batch, I prefer to simply use arm muscle and do it the conventional way. Feel free to use a hand or stand mixer if preferred.

Add the egg and egg yolk and continue to beat a little more.

Add the buttermilk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. If you don’t have buttermilk at home, I normally substitute with mixture of yogurt and milk using a 3:1 ratio.

That’s your wet ingredients all combined.

Now, to the dry ingredients.

Sieve the flour and baking soda. Add salt and matcha powder. Whisk the whole thing until well combined.

Take out a spoonful of the dry ingredients and mix ’em with half of the chopped pistachio.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Mix a little.

Add the chopped pistachios that had been coated with the dry ingredients.

Mix the whole thing until just combined.

Scoop the batter into muffin cases.

Scatter the other half of the chopped pistachio on top of the batter.

Bake at 170°C for about 18 to 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted to the centre of the muffin comes out clean.

This batch makes 6 large muffins.

You can make them into cupcake size and pipe matcha buttercream on top – just a suggestion. I don’t like icing on my cake. Literally. Not figuratively. Heh. Yeah, I’m a weird species.