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Prep time
35 minutes
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Cook time
25 minutes
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Makes
12 tp 16
Author Notes
Ah, yet another brownie recipe. Before we go any further, let’s address the lineup of questions that every brownie recipe will have to come under scrutiny for. Are these brownies the fudgy or cakey sort? Do they have a crackly top? Are they frosted or bare? Classic or eccentric?
While I have my personal preference—crackly, unfrosted, and criminally fudgy—championing one type of brownie over all others isn’t the point of this recipe. Instead, I’m just here, as your friendly neighborhood home cook, to suggest the addition of one ingredient that can add intrigue and umami—matcha!
I barely need to espouse the virtues of matcha, or Japanese green tea. It’s the darling flavor of many dessert and drinks brands, from Lady M mille crepes to Tsujiri soft serves, to the streams of matcha lattes from Cha Cha Matcha and Matchabar in NYC. Despite being a tea, when used in sweet applications, matcha’s grassy astringency and sweet nuttiness grounds desserts with a layer of earthiness and umami.
And in a brownie, matcha balances the cloy of the chocolate, lending a slight savoriness that makes you reach for more. Don’t get me wrong, a classic fudgy brownie is irresistible. But I often find that after scarfing down my second square, brownie fatigue sets in and my appetite for them dissipates as quickly as it arrived. But with matcha in the brownie, the path to a third, a fourth, and maybe even a fifth piece becomes possible.
Adding matcha to your brownies can be as easy as sifting in the powdered green tea with the flour and cocoa powder, and stirring them into the eggs and butter. But one major downside of this is you lose the vibrant green tinge of the matcha, the hallmark of any matcha-centered dessert. So instead, here we make two brownie batters, one regular, and one sans cocoa powder—with the dark chocolate substituted for white so as not to muddle up the zingy green. The two batters get swirled together with a toothpick into a marbled, magical mass before getting popped into the oven for a steady bake.
The result? A swirly, whirly, umami-rich brownie.
—Jun
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Ingredients
- Chocolate batter
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1/2 cup
all-purpose flour
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3 tablespoons
cocoa powder
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1/2 teaspoon
salt
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6 ounces
good-quality dark chocolate, chopped into rough chunks
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1
stick unsalted butter, cut to 1-inch pieces
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3
large eggs
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1 cup
lightly packed brown sugar
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1 teaspoon
vanilla extract
- Matcha batter
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3/4 cup
all-purpose flour
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1 tablespoon
matcha (green tea) powder
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1/2 teaspoon
kosher salt
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6 ounces
white chooclate, chopped into rough chunks
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1
stick unsalted butter
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3
large eggs
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1/2 cup
superfine sugar
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1 teaspoon
vanilla extract
Directions
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Chocolate batter: Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and salt together in a bowl. Then, melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl in a microwave at 30-second increments until thoroughly melted. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla extract together for 1 minute, or until fluffy. To this, add in the chocolate and stir together until well-combined. Fold dd in the dry ingredients until just mixed and no streaks of flour remain. (Make sure not to overmix the batter at this point.)
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Matcha batter: Similar to the chocolate batter, first start off by sifting the flour, matcha powder, and salt together. Then, melt the white chocolate and butter in a bowl in a microwave. In a third bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract together until fluffy. To this, add in the chocolate mixture and stir together until well-combined. Fold in the dry ingredients until just mixed and no streaks of flour remain.
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Heat your oven to 355°F. Meanwhile, grease a 9x9-inch baking tin, then line it with parchment.
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Reserving roughly 1/4 of the chocolate batter, pour the rest into the lined baking tin, spreading it out to all sides, and smoothing the top with a spatula. Then, pour all of the matcha batter on top of the chocolate batter, and spread it out evenly again. Now, dollop on the chocolate batter you saved onto the matcha batter (I find a 3x3 grid of dots works well). Using a toothpick or a chopstick, gently swirl and circle your way through the batter to form a marbled effect.
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When the brownie base is marbled to your desire, pop the pan into the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a cake tester poked through it comes out clean. When done, let the brownie cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before lifting it out of the pan with the baking paper, and cooling completely on a wire rack. Cut into squares, and serve with ice cream, whipped cream, or just devour it on its own!
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