I’ve been drinking lots of tea in the morning and evenings, especially now that it is getting cold.  I start my day off at work with at least a couple cups of tea, and I think it helps me to relax and get focused.  I drink a wide variety of tea, but I am trying to drink more green tea, which I really enjoy. I’ve been studying the health benefits of green tea – metabolism boost, immune system boost, mental alertness, and possible anti-diabetes and anti-cancer effects.

Awhile back, I had a delicious green tea scone at Teh Ku and I just found a recipe for green tea muffins, which I decided to try.  A lot of people find green tea to be bitter and don’t like it, but I think even people who don’t care for green tea would like these muffins.  They are pretty sweet, and the tea flavor is pretty mild. 

I had some green tea bags at our apartment, but this recipe calls for matcha, which is a finely ground Japanese green tea.  Matcha is more of a powder than what I had at home, which is extremely course.  Unfortunately, Kroger in all of it’s gigantic slendor and square footage (sushi bar and cupcake bar included!) has a very embarressingly small ethnic food section, and after looking in the tea and organic food sections, I had to go home empty handed. 

So, below is my modified recipe*** that uses a blend of green tea you can get from a regular green tea bag, as well as Yerba maté, which is kind of similar to tea, and was introduced to me by the lovely Ann, who spent a few months in Argentina.   Feel free to use matcha, green tea, or maté.  I think any of those would be lovely.

- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons green tea
- 2 teaspoons maté
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs

Directions:

Preheat oven at 350°F. Sift together the flour, baking soda, tea and maté, and set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter until light. Add the sugar and eggs and beat some more until light and fluffy. Add the dry mixture and the milk. Stir with a spatula or wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are just incorporated.  The batter will be somewhat lumpy. Divide the batter among the muffin tins (If you don’t have any liners, grease the tins), about 2/3 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

*** Recipe adapted from here.

I only post recipes I find to be very delicious, so this one has my approval.  Plus it’s healthy.  Well, as healthy as something with a bunch of sugar, butter and eggs can be, I guess. 

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 4:51 pm and is filed under cooking + baking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.