There's a green tea recipe for just about everything you can imagine these days. Today, I'm sharing a recipe for matcha green tea milk bread that's a must-try!
Adding Green Tea to Bread Recipes
The best part about baking is the creative freedom of making something one-of-a-kind with your own hands.
Choosing your favorite fresh ingredients and trying new things leads to delicious discoveries about taste and health. Adding green tea or matcha to baked bread is a great way to incorporate a tasty superfood that you already know and love into your diet. Sure, fresh tea leaves are not usually what comes to mind when choosing ingredients to bake bread. But many bakers worldwide have already found the pleasure of baking with tea, and soon you will too!
Although an uncommon bread ingredient for most, green tea can offer not only a unique earthy flavor but also incredible health benefits. The versatility of this superfood ingredient in bread baking alone is almost as impressive as the complete nutrition it provides for your body and mind.
(You can read all about the impressive health benefits of green tea in this post.)
A suggestion for balancing out the earthy, sometimes bitter flavor of green tea or matcha is to add sweetener. Raw sugar, honey, agave, and maple syrup complement the flavor and aroma that green tea presents and are easy to add to a bread recipe. This tip can be used for sweet or savory bread recipes alike.
Adding a pinch of extra salt along with a sweet component to a savory bread recipe allows the flavors to bring out the best in one another, adding complexity and depth to a fresh, homemade loaf of bread.
Baking with Matcha
Great matcha often comes with a large price tag, and loose tea leaves tend to be more affordable. But both can work well for baking—whether you only have matcha on hand or simply prefer to use loose tea leaves, either can be incorporated into freshly baked bread.
Just be aware of the potency in both aroma and flavor of the amount of tea you choose to bake with. Make sure you consider that matcha provides a more robust flavor in the finished bread than loose tea leaves.
So, if you usually cook with fresh tea leaves, using the same amount when baking with matcha isn't recommended. Or else, you'll end up with a rich aroma but an overwhelming, unpleasant flavor!
The best way to get the most delightful flavor is by using the freshest green tea or matcha available. Then, use it according to your personal preference when baking for friends and family.
Matcha is subtle enough to be mixed in directly without causing issues with bread texture if done carefully and correctly.
The simplest way to incorporate matcha into freshly baked bread is by mixing it entirely with the dry ingredients. On the other hand, matcha is prone to forming heavy clumps. Whisking the soft powder into a liquid is a little tip that will discourage heavy clumping, resulting in uneven flavor distribution throughout the bread.
Whichever method you use, be sure the matcha is mixed well and dissolved. Although matcha is flavorful enough to not necessarily need to be steeped or infused, attempting this in your baking process cannot hurt and may even yield great results, so why not give it a try?
Tips for Using Green Tea in Recipes
When it comes to baking, infusing green tea or matcha does not have to compromise the soft, chewy texture of fresh bread.
Here are some tips for achieving perfect bread baked using green tea:
- Loose green tea leaves can be ground, but they may be too coarse and noticeable in the finished bread. Although powdered green tea is interchangeable with fresh ground green tea in a bread recipe, powdered tea is much smoother and possibly more concentrated than regular green tea, affecting your bread’s overall flavor and outcome.
- If coarsely ground leaves are the only option, add them to the dough after brewing and straining through a cheesecloth to remove any grit.
- Steeping or infusing the fresh tea leaves is a better way of incorporating the benefits of tea into your baking.
Do you have a sweet tooth? Here are three green tea dessert recipes to try next.
Matcha Green Tea Milk Bread
Taking the above in thought, here is one recipe that you can try out yourself.
Yield: One standard (8½” x 4½”) loaf
Ingredients:
- 2 ½ cups bread flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup milk
- 120g tangzhong (about 1/2 a cup)
- 2 tablespoons matcha powder
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 3 tablespoons butter (softened)
Directions:
- Combine the flour, salt, sugar, and instant yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer. Using your fist or a spoon, make a well in the center. Add in all the wet ingredients (butter, tangzhong, milk, and egg), attach the dough hook to your standing mixer, and begin mixing at medium speed. Knead until your dough comes together, then add the butter and continue the kneading process. Knead until the dough has reached its proper consistency.
- Knead the dough into a ball shape and split it in half. Put half of the dough back into the mixer. Add in the matcha powder and continue kneading for about 2 minutes at medium speed, or until the matcha powder is thoroughly mixed into the dough. Take two large bowls and grease them with oil. Place each dough ball into a greased bowl and cover with cellophane or a dampened towel. Let it proof until it’s doubled in size, about 40 minutes.
- Transfer the proofed dough to a clean surface and divide each dough into four equal portions. Knead into balls, cover with cellophane, and let rest for an additional 15 minutes.
- Roll out each portion of the dough into an oval shape using a rolling pin. Take one piece of matcha dough, rolled out into an oval, and put it on top of the white dough, also rolled out into an oval. Run the rolling pin a few times on top so that the two doughs begin to stick together and merge into one piece of dough. Take one end of the dough and fold it to meet the middle of the oval. Take the other end and fold it to meet on top.
- Flip the dough over with the folds facing down and flatten it using a rolling pin.
- Flip the dough over with the folds facing up. Now, roll the dough up. Place each of the rolls into the bread pan and cover the rolls with cellophane. Let them rise until they double in size, approximately 40 more minutes.
- Brush the egg mixture on top to create that shiny, desirable egg wash finish.
- Bake at 325 degrees F for approximately 30 minutes. Take it out, and you’re ready to go!
There you have it! One chapter and one green tea recipe from my book Cook with Green Tea. This recipe book has more visual images for baking matcha bread, cakes, smoothies, cocktails, and a whole lot more. The book is the ultimate guide for cooking with matcha and green tea, and it also makes the perfect gift for the green tea lovers in your life! Grab your copy here!
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About the author
Kei Nishida
Author, CEO Dream of Japan
Certification: PMP, BS in Computer Science
Education: Western Washington University
Kei Nishida is a Japanese green tea enthusiast, a writer, and the founder and CEO of Japanese Green Tea Co., a Dream of Japan Company. His passion for introducing America to the tea of his homeland was the catalyst for creating the only company that brings high-quality tea from Arahataen Green Tea Farms to the rest of the world. Learn more about Kei
