You’re crazy. Possibly good-crazy, but crazy nonetheless.

The fact that you can’t refrain your love for acorns, for anything impossible, and for green tea simply proves it.
Or it might actually be that many times when you take the cutest voice ever and start rambling about ponies with glitter manes that live close to a chocolate lake.

One or the other – almost certainly both – that one person you’re very much in like with doesn’t know that. Yet.

So you feel uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what you should do, or say. In fact, you’re quite confused as to how you should be.

He invites you for a drink. You pretend to think twice.
He kisses you on the cheek when you arrive – late. You refrain that I’ll-show-my-teeth smile.
And then, after a drink or two, it seems like you’re having a the-ponies-strike-back moment. And then, after a second or two, he simply laughs and kisses you. Except this time, it’s not on the cheek.

I think it would be safe to say: if an oven can’t handle you at your worse, then it sure as hell don’t deserve you at you best.

Wait, an oven?

I certainly did mean to say a guy, but you see, I’ve had a little relationship problem with my oven lately. I’m new to him, and he’s new to me.

We started well with some cheddar and chives scones a couple of weeks ago. And then, a blueberry cake made way past midnight for one of my starving friends. But today, it seemed like all he wanted was to upset me.

I had the highest plan for some perfectly earthy and yet creamy matcha whoopie pies. The batter looked pretty-in-green and the frosting was more than adequate for some straight-from-the-bowl-finger-eating-action.

But from the neat little domes I had piped just ten short minutes beforehand, only what could definitely be mistaken for the teletubbies rolling hills landscape subsisted.

I was heartbroken. Until I realised I should just be my very own good-crazy-self (please, may I insist on good?) and tweaked the thermostat (nb. remind me to have a word with the person who invented those all the heat from the bottom gas ovens) to 5.

Ten minutes later, it felt more like into the wild than tinky winky. Which is a good thing in my world.

Matcha whoopie pies
For this first experiment with those macaron-wannabes, I decided to go a little feral and ditch the cocoa powder for the house favourite: matcha green tea.

I thought the slight bitterness of the tea helped cut through the sweetness of the marshmallow filling. And while we’re on the subject, I shall mention that I made my own marshmallow cream, just because it’s something I’ve always wanted to try.

I’m not sure it’s anything close to the actual fluff, but it was still lovely enough to be eaten by the spoon.

With no rational reason except that those brioches looked terribly good, I decided to venture into the realm of feuilletage.

Once again. Although, this time, my kitchen did not come with a rolling pin.

I could have bought one on my recent visit to Pages. I almost did in fact. But eventually got out from the shop carrying many cercles [rings], a couple of knives, a sugar thermometer, and some ramekins.

Quite providentially, my kitchen did come with too many empty wine bottles to admit it; let’s be honest, I had five of them sitting on the counter.

In my defence, I must tell you they have been there for weeks, not just since the last waste removal day, which was – let me think – this morning.

Armed with the one bottle that seemed fit for the occasion – read perfectly cylindrical, label removed – I went straight for the recipe. And then realised the folding instructions were in Japanese.

Now, why my kitchen did not come with full wine bottles? At that point, I could have used a glass.

Instead, I started doodling, only to realise my panic attack was pointless. A simple tour double.
Just like for puff pastry.

I made the dough. Left it to rise. Made the matcha filling. Chilled it. Then, I started rolling and folding, and rolling and folding.

Somehow, my dreamlike vision of the use of wine bottles as rolling pins vanished when the filling started leaking and the dough stuck to the bottle.

My counter ended up green, so did my fingers.

But that’s okay.

First, because I like green. And second, because I see no problem whatsoever in licking green fingers when they taste like matcha.

One lesson I have learnt from this experience: get yourself a decent rolling pin girl.

If unlike me – and probably not unlike every person around the world – you own a rolling pin, then I urge you to make these brioches. With green tea, or if you’re feeling a little more subversive, with cocoa powder.

Brioches marbrées au thé matcha
Adapted from Les carnets d’une connasse parisienne.

Don’t be scared with all the rolling pin action here. These brioches are very easy to make, and a teart to eat.

If you’re going to use cocoa powder instead of matcha, go for 20g of powder. And then proceed as follow.

I assume you guessed from the lack of content around here that I’ve been somewhat busy. And well, you’re just damn right. I haven’t been cooking – or more accurately baking – much lately.

I sure have been making myself lovely meals: from pink-hello-kitty-bento-packed lunches to warm and comforting dinners. But baking, ahem, not really. Aside from delicious fudgy brownies of which only the scraps were photographed, that is.

But yesterday, as I was redesigning fanny (previously known as je suis une cacahuète), I definitely felt the urge to nibble on something sweet yet delicate. Lindt milk chocolate being anything but delicate, I put my laptop down for the first time in the past couple of hours and headed to the kitchen.

Butter had been let at room temperature all day (I must have subconsciously known I was about to use later in the day). Icing sugar quietly sat on the shelf, along with flour. A dozen of day-fresh eggs were waiting for me in the fridge; next to my preciously kept jar filled with fat vanilla beans. And, almost unnoticed, matcha green tea was at the far end of my beautiful antique wood counter.
It only took me a second before I knew what I was going to make. Kelli’s green tea shortbreads.

I might have only made them once – for the second birthday of foodbeam – but damn, I got hooked. And so did many bloggers. It’s funny because it took me quite some time to get around and make Kelli’s recipe, which got posted on lovescool back in May, last year. But soon after I made them, it reminded all the people who had bookmarked the recipe to actually make it. And well, you know the rest of the story.

Since then, I made appoint to cook more from other blogs. Quite evidently, this didn’t happen, but well, I am bookmarking like crazy. Just check my tumblr blog and you’ll grasp the full scale of my craziness. Anyway, this time around I didn’t make them plain – oh you had guessed that already? from the pictures? damn, I’m bad at creating the surprise. So well I did experiment, with Sarah’s peppermint cookies well in mind.

Now two things. 1/ Don’t they look super pretty? 2/ French nonpareils don’t taste good.
The sables themselves were absolutely perfect – but that’s totally what you would expect from one of Kelli’s recipe. As for the nonpareils. Well, pretty, but not delicious.

Sablés escargots à la vanille et au thé vert
Adapted from Kelli’s green tea sweets.

As said above those sablés are really delicious. But if you’re planning on making them, I would suggest leaving out the nonpareils, which – at least in France – don’t taste good. Unless you’re making them for children, but I doubt they would appreciate the green tea flavour; or maybe I’m just wrong and they’d love it – I mean green cookies. Green. Cookies. Yeah!
You could also make the sables plain, by increasing the tea to one and a half tablespoon, instead of the one tablespoon the recipe calls for.

Exactly two years ago, something got me totally over-excited. Over the fact that I had just finished my exams, discovered I wasn’t the only person in the world thinking mostly about food and created foodbeam – enough reasons to be thrilled, believe me -, I was about to participate to Is my blog burning? And this got me in the kind of state you don’t want to see me in.
We had to come up with a recipe using any kind of tea. I started thinking; you could have tried to talk to me I wouldn’t have answered. Hey, this is serious; okay!
Then I remembered reading about a kind of green tea that is widely used in pastry. I rushed to my cookbook room (well… to the shelf in my bedroom; but wouldn’t it be fantastic to have a room just for cookbooks?) and found the book I was looking for. The recipe was entitled ‘Big madeleine au thé vert’ and this was illustrated by two mighty-and-very-green-looking madeleines. I had MY tea. Next step was to find it. If you’ve ever been to France you should know that the probability of finding a shop opened on Sunday afternoons is about as high as the chance of bumping into a giant peanut in Greenland (I have to admit that I do have some crazy ideas sometimes). So it was a Sunday afternoon and I needed some matcha green tea. I don’t know why and how, but I did get some. Needless to say (but I say it anyway), I did make a long little happy dance.

From that day, I have been literally obsessed with matcha green tea. I can’t even use it for pastries anymore because I have to get my daily fix, which takes the form of a green tea soy latté, and this uses a lot of this priceless green powder. Some people rely on cocaine, I live on green tea (and I must say I prefer things to be this way than the opposite).

Today though, I decided to sacrifice some of my precious tea. Indeed, today is a special day: foodbeam is turning two.
Two overwhelming years. The last one being particularly intense: a semester in New Zealand, a new domain, a new graphic-design, an internship at Pierre Hermé, a lovely tea-break with Dorie Greenspan… And I really wish that things won’t stop here because, so far, I’ve been enjoying every single second.

As you can imagine, I had a busy day. But I did manage to find some time to bake two of the most wonderful green tea flavoured pastries that I had been wanting to make for ages.
Both of them were a huge success and the recipes went directly into my ‘hit-recipes’ notebook.

Kelli’s sablés au thé vert (recipe)
When Kelli launched Amaï Tea Sweets, I immediately fell in love with the green tea cookies; secretly hoping that I had the recipe.
So when she posted it last May, I was more than happy. Another dream about to come true!

These shortbreads are simply outstanding. A beautiful shade of green and a satisfying flavour of green tea.
Well, I’m not sure whether I should tell you this or not, but I ate – let’s say – a great quantity of the raw dough. To my defence, I must say that it was so good I’m sure you’d have done the same.

***Edit***
Seems these cookies are everywhere now – Sigrid, Edith, Mae, Inne, Tuki, Veronica, Céline, Maddy, Lisa, Jasmine, Pille and Mandy definitely know what I meant when I said how addictive these are!

Cheryl’s cupcakes à la vanilla, aux perles du Japon et au thé vert (recipe)
Cheryl cupcakes are always eye-catching; but when I stumbled upon this one I knew I had to make it someday.
And I’m so glad I did: the three components of the cupcakes are real winners.
The vanilla cupcakes (note: I switched the vanilla essence for the seeds of three vanilla beans) are fragrant and have the most perfect crumb ever.
The green tea tapioca would make a perfect dessert on its own (I love the hint of coconut). I’m sure I’ll make this again and again.
The green tea cream cheese frosting is totally lip-smacking.
Can you tell I love these cupcakes?

Thanks everyone for being so inspiring. Every single of your words make me happy. And happy birthday foodbeam!