Matcha and me – this hasn’t been love at first sight. The fine green tea powder is used in Japanese tea ceremonies but can also be taken as an ingredient for many treats. Our initial attempt was some matcha shake and it wasn’t quite a success. Arne didn’t like the grassy taste and I got quite shaky from the heavy caffeine input (which might be due to the fact that I normally don’t drink tea or coffee). But the second approach was a direct hit: New York cheesecake. Ever since, I’m a huge matcha fan.
We are strong NY cheesecake enthusiasts and we like best the version they serve at Barcomi’s, one of our favorite deli’s. I never did it myself (I am not a fearless baker as some of you might know) but the idea of green tea cheesecake didn’t get out of my mind. On the contrary, my phantasies got even more precise: it needed to be cheesecake in jars (to have some homemade GÜ so to speak…).
So I searched the blogosphere for THE original recipe (well, without matcha). Of course there is no one and only authentic first moment ever recipe. But I found a thrilling New York cheesecake on Deb’s smitten kitchen with a cherry topping to die for. Reading the ingredients and proportions for the cream cheese filling and the crumb crust, I knew this would be the one for me. I will definitely also try the topping version soon, but for the matcha edition I needed something else on top. I found it at tomatenblüte by Sybille in her lovely New York Cheesecake recipe with some sour cream as the top layer. Furthermore, a commenter of her’s gave the advice to take mascarpone instead of cream cheese, and I decided to do a mix. What came out in the end is definitely the greenest cheesecake we ever had – and the most sophisticated. Thank you Deb and Sybille for the inspiration!
Here’s my recipe
The basis of this cake is Deb’s recipe which I adapted to German measurements and calculated down to six jars of each 160 ml (and I made some small changes).
First, put the cleaned jars, lids and rubber rings in cooking water for 5 minutes and let get air-dried.
Melt 50 g Butter and mix it with 100 g finely ground oat cookies and ½ teaspoon sea salt. Deb adds some sugar as well, but the cookies I used (I couldn’t get original graham crackers) have been quite sweet already. Fill the bottoms of the jars with the mixture and press in (you don’t need to grease the jars as the cake is served in it and doesn’t get turned out).
Mix 250 g mascarpone and 250 g cream cheese (Deb makes it with only cream cheese which is surely great as well), 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk, ½ teaspoon vanilla, 2 teaspoons matcha, 75 g sugar (we love it not too sweet, but you can take more), 1 tablespoon whole spelt flour (Deb takes all purpose flour) and mix very well. Fill in the jars and leave 2 cm of space between the cream and the rim and be careful not to dribble on the rim of the jars. Mix 175 g sour cream with 2 teaspoons sugar and put aside. Put the jars in a dish that can stand the heat in the oven and that is filled with water (2 cm height) and put it all in the preheated oven (175 °C) and bake for 20 minutes. If you do a big single cake, take a look at Deb’s and Sybille’s recipes regarding temperature and time. Add the sour cream on top and bake for another 10 minutes. Take off the oven, immediately put the rubber rings and the lids on the jars and close with clamps. Be careful as the jars are really hot (and the rest of the equipment gets hot as well quickly). I am not sure how long the cakes will keep fresh in the closed jars but I recommend to keep them in the fridge and consume within one week.
Today’s urban shots
Today’s topic is about things on walls – from installations (the beautiful tamasha apes are still in town) and old advertisements to window decorations. Take a look:
Food with a View 
I”d never have thought! What a creative idea. They look delicious ! xx
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Thank you, Sam! I am most happy that I discovered matcha for little treats like these.
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You did it! 😉 Cheesecake in Jars sound irresistable! Did they have a strong matcha taste? I have to get my hands on that stuff soon. And I love your old fashioned jars.
Will visit them apes soon…
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Yes, and I did it several times already ;-). I love those jars as well, thanks for the compliment.
The matcha taste is not strong with the proportions that I used but clearly noticeable. You can of cause increase. I would suggest to take more vanilla then, too, as the vanilla is the counterbalance for the grassy and slightly bitter touch of the matcha. I would recommend to start with not too much and then increase step by step, also to test the caffeine effect (which seems to be more intense when consumed raw like in shakes).
Have fun with the apes, great that you visit them!
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Wow…dear Claudia,
Deb from smitten kitchen and me in one sentence..what a major honor 🙂 🙂
I love your version!!
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I’m most happy that you like the version, Sybille! Thanks a lot again for the inspiration (and as I know that you are a big Barcomi’s fan as well, the pleasure is even bigger).
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May I have a piece … ähh … jar?
I remember having “baked matcha ice cream” once. Wasn’t too bad also. But I would prefer your cheesecake.
Irre Farbe, ich muss das Mittel auch haben. Gibt es da Qualitätsunterschiede und wo kauft man das am besten? Du siehst, ich kenn mich mal wieder überhaupt nicht aus. Aber alles was du machst, will ich auch ausprobieren. Man kommt gar nicht mehr hinterher … toll!
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Matcha-Gelato, wie wunderbar ist das denn! Bei nächster Gelegenheit gehe ich in die Refabrikation, auch ohne Eismaschine (und mache ja alles mit, was Du vorschlägst, Ingwer-Öl, Langpfeffer, Queller, Matcha-Eis – auch alles zusammen, wenn es sein muss ;-)).
Regarding quality: I am a total newby with matcha, but yes, there seem to be differences (it should obviously be made of the sort “tencha”). For a first attempt I spontaneously bought a tiny portion of non-organic matcha at my local Asian shop which has a fine taste. But I nevertheless want to try an organic version next time. I guess bigger organic shops and special tea stores will be worth a try, and of course online shops.
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Love your Matcha version of cheese cake in a jar. They’re also great for picknics. I bought my last matcha at TeeGschwendner. They also have organic sorts. BTW Arnes “Perfect Faces” pic would make a great poster!
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Thanks for your nice comment (I love Arnes perfact faces shot as well)! You are right, these jars are very nice for picknicks – we took them with us on our 1st May bicycle tour.
Thank you also for your Gschwendner hint!
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Love cheesecakes! Two months ago I bought one of my favorite cooking magazines (“Lust auf Genuss”, edition 4/2013) – contains nothing but cheesecake recipes (savory ones, too). But no matcha cheesecake at all. The only flaw, so far as I can see. Fortunately you filled the gap. Thanks a lot. By the way: There are some jars like yours in my cabinet 🙂
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A full cheese cake edition, wow! Great that I could fill the matcha gap (and I have some truffle idea on my mind already ;-)).
How nice that you have those vintage jars as well! You won’t regret trying the matcha version in it. I did it also with raspberry topping in the meantime and the tastes match very well (and the colours even more).
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Looks great! And I love your jars! Pretty!!
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Thanks a lot, Puja!
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