matcha swirly rings

This is not a sweet thing.

This is a pastry that has a sweet touch to it, despite the sugar, and melts in your mouth, but most of the flavor is brought by matcha and it’s tart and bitter and long-lasting. 

Most of the things I’ve made with matcha so far were cakes and mousses where it was incorporated into the cake batter or whipped cream or butter and while the flavor was still there, it was mild and subtle, spread evenly across the whole dish. Here, between the crunchy puff pastry and the gritty sugar, matcha is raw. It tastes like a herb, in a way, and it’s a strong flavor. It tastes bitter like a green tea you left brewing for too long and it leaves sandy feeling on your tongue and it’s amazing. It’s more sophisticated than delicate but it’s really worth trying so please do, if you feel up to an adventure. You won’t be disappointed.

makes about 15

1 sheet puff pastry (~250 grams)

2 tsp matcha powder

5 tbsp sugar + some more for sprinkling

2 tbsp butter

melt the butter with a tiny bit of water, add the sugar and mix until dissolved

add matcha powder, mix in

smear the puff pastry with the mixture, preferably using a brush, or pour it over the pastry and spread with a knife

cut 30 stripes (1 cut along the longer side of the cake and 15 along the shorter side)

take two stripes, push the dough together at the end so that it sticks and simply wrap one of the stripes around each other

stick the endings together and put on a baking tray

springle with sugar

bake for about 7 minutes in an oven preheated to 200C

carrot fest

Colors of autumn on a plate - on a harsh grey paper - are one of my favorite things this month. Until this year we never had such a variety of carrots, only the regular orange ones were available, so this sudden rainbow colors of the root veggies stand was fascinating. 

The white one is sharp and bitter, a bit like turnip or horseradish or maybe kohlrabi. The yellow one is in-between, with an earthy undertone. The purple is surprisingly sweet, almost as if it were a fruit and not a vegetable. 

My favorite pairing was the purple one with cilantro cream cheese spread - one of the best snacks this whole year. But all of the combinations are good, you can't go wrong with the classics, right? Carrot and hummus, carrot and cream cheese, it's classic that everyone knows - and yet there is refreshing and fascinating newness to the wide selection and the visually appealing food that just begs to be eaten.

So please grab a healthy and amazing bite!

carrot fest ingredients:

carrots of four kinds: regular, white, yellow, purple

baguette (or any other kind of nice bread)

hummus (I had regular and tomato)

cream cheese (I mixed it with salt and chopper cilantro)

cheddar cheese sticks (I used Polish bursztyn)