I was drinking a Soufuu sencha sample yesterday, one of the many single cultivar creations by Ashikubo Tea Works that I can consider to pick up in a future order. The idea of ‘matcha marzipan’ came to mind while I was discerning the aromas of the dry tea leaves. I jotted it down with a note “try later”.
Later came, I made a batch of marzipan with roughly 1 1/2 cups of almond flour, 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar, 1/2 cup of shitty costco matcha, and 2 egg whites. The Costco matcha I used was already pretty old, the once green color it had became a shade of dark earthy green-brown. At the time I felt the color didn’t matter because I was just trying to get a baseline feeling for how matcha and marzipan tasted together and my experiment would likely just stop there. It sat in the food processor until it became a giant unbeatable mass of dark green bordering gray.
When I took the ball out of the food processor it really reminded me of the wet clay I filtered from the soil in my backyard several years ago (pictured below). After playing around with the marzipan for a bit, I felt the consistency and elasticity of it was better than any clay I’ve tried to make so far. I jokingly said to my wife “I bet I can make little edible cups from this.”
15 minutes later I had a tray of cups — mostly small, 2 cups a little bigger, and 1 cup that can probably hold 100ml. Even at this stage they were passable as crudely made clay cups and on any other day my creativity probably would have stopped there.
Last week I made Calisson d’aix. Calisson’s are one of my favorite little snacks that I prepare approximately once every 5 years. There’s a royal icing that finishes the Calisson with a brilliant white color — Oni-Hagi-ware from Japan has a pretty similar aesthetic. It was surely because I made Calisson’s last week and have experience with Japanese pottery that I was able to make these connections.
I whipped up a batch of icing (egg white, icing sugar, lemon juice) and dipped my little clay cups in as a potter would use a ‘slip’. When I took them out I rested them on a wire mesh. Later that night I re-whipped the glaze and poured it over the top of a few of them, just to see how it would turn out.
The cups turned out fantastic, they have a strong matcha flavor, but the amount of sugar really keeps the bitterness in check. They hold liquid very well and do not soften quickly. The issue that remains is that the glaze is sticky even after about 18 hours. From my experience with Calisson’s the glaze should become dry and the marzipan not tacky after about 24~36 hours.
I’m probably not the first person in the world to make these things but ‘edible tea cups’ or ‘marzipan tea cups’ turns up nothing similar on google. If I were to buy a cheap potters wheel I could probably ‘throw’ some really impressive little snacks. It’s something to consider for the future 🙂
The network of experiences that came together in the creation of this cup is insane. What a bizarre life I’ve lead, and where will it go from here?
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