Pistachio Matcha Bonbons

As you know, I have been toying with matcha tea powders a bit recently and a friend reached out to me who owns a company called Chiki Tea in Japan. I totally forgot about them on my matcha journey the past few weeks.

“All of our Matcha comes from Yame in Kyushu, an area with the perfect climate and soil constitution to produce some of the finest Matcha in Japan. Our farmer is one of the last few remaining who uses straw mats to cover the plants in spring, roughly a month before harvest. This method takes intense time as the coverings are made by hand and benefit the leaves by shading but also filtering the rain water and adding more minerals. Shading allows the nutrients to swell in the leaves, hence why Matcha is the superfood it claims to be. Our leaves are plucked by hand by delightful ladies, then processed (de-stemmed, steamed) and milled using a granite mill.”

I LOVE when that much time, patience, love and dedication is put into a product. It’s a trait that is often missing from our food these days – real care.

Matcha pairs really well with citrus of any kind and, in this recipe, I decided to go with orange to lift and balance the flavours. Between the matcha tea and the pistachios, this recipe is rather luxurious. The bonbon is a little “cakey” in texture, making it a soft centre that comes after biting through a dark shell of chocolate.

100g ( 1 cup ) rolled oats
50g ( ½ cup ) cashews
50g ( ⅓ cup ) pistachios
15g ( 1 tbsp ) coconut flour
50g ( ¼ cup ) powdered xylitol or coconut sugar
30g ( 2 tbsp ) honey or maple syrup
1-2 tsp matcha tea powder
½ tsp vanilla powder or 1/4 tsp extract
Pinch sea salt
4 drops orange essential oil or 2 tsp orange zest

30g ( 2 tbsp ) coconut oil, melted
15g ( 1 tbsp ) water, or as needed to bring together

To finish
250g ( 7.5 oz ) chocolate of your choice, shaved
50g ( ⅓ cup ) pistachios, roughly chopped in the food processor

Method

• Pulse the first set of ingredient in a food processor. I pulsed to a rough crumb so the cake balls would have some texture in them, but you could also process fine.

• Add the coconut oil and water and pulse to bring together. If it doesn’t come together, add a ½ tsp water at a time until it does.

• If you add too much water, add ½ – 1 tsp coconut flour at a time to firm it back up.

• Roll into balls ( approx 20 ) and set in the fridge, about 20 minutes.

• Get your chocolate melted down while they are setting and then enrobe and garnish them using the instructions in the video below, if you are new to enrobing.