Made with white chocolate, butter, and cream and dusted with Japanese green tea powder, this decadent Matcha Chocolate (or Matcha Nama Chocolate) is simply irresistible. It’s rich with a truffle-like texture and just the right touch of sweetness.
This Matcha Chocolate, or what we call Matcha Nama Chocolate (抹茶生チョコレート) in Japan, simply melts in your mouth.
As I was testing this recipe, I knew I won’t be able to stop eating them so Mr. JOC took them to work. He told me later, “The green tea chocolate disappeared in seconds.” I promise you, it’s really good!
Green tea powder, or matcha (抹茶), has a unique bitter taste to it. The flavor of “matcha” is quite different from the green tea served at Japanese restaurants. Matcha is typically used for making tea at the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. This tea tends to be thick and exceptionally bitter, but it goes quite well with wagashi (和菓子), a traditional Japanese confectioneries that are very sweet by itself.
The color of matcha is a bright, beautiful green color, so if your matcha powder doesn’t have that nice vivid hue to it, your matcha is well past its prime. The green tea powder is also quite pricey, especially if it is of tea ceremony quality, but the culinary grade is good enough for baking and making these chocolates.
As you may already know, green tea delivers a healthy dose of antioxidants and cancer-fighting power. Catechins in green tea are also known to have many beneficial health properties and matcha has greater potential health benefits than other green tea.
In Japan, there are many varieties of green tea chocolate in stores, including green tea Pocky’s, Melty Kiss, Kit Kat, and the popular ROYCE’ Chocolate.
When I made ROYCE’ copycat Nama Chocolate two years ago, I received many requests for the green tea version. I love anything with green tea, so I’m really happy to finally share this green tea version with you this year. Right in time for Valentine’s Day!
The cooking process for this recipe is very similar to the regular Nama Chocolate recipe, but white chocolate is used instead of regular chocolate. My only advice for you is to work fast to melt the white chocolate while the cream is warm.
Rich, yet not so sweet, decadent truffle-like matcha green tea chocolate, it is simply irresistible. If you love green tea sweets, this will be the ultimate treat for you.
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Matcha Chocolate
Video
Ingredients
- 14 oz white chocolate (you‘ll need 4 Lindt White Chocolate Swiss Classic Bars and measure the weight to get 400 g; see Notes)
- ½ cup heavy (whipping) cream (see Notes)
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 Tbsp matcha (green tea powder)
- 2 tsp matcha (green tea powder) (for sprinkling)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients. You will also need 1 8- x 8-inch (20 x 20 cm) baking dish and line it with parchment paper.
- Chop 14 oz white chocolate into small pieces so it will melt quickly.
- Cut 2 Tbsp unsalted butter into small pieces.
- Add ½ cup heavy (whipping) cream into a small saucepan and bring it ALMOST to a boil over medium heat. Keep an eye on the cream; when you see bubbles around the saucepan, remove from the heat.
- Immediately add the white chocolate and butter. With a rubber spatula, mix all together.
- The mixture will start to solidify, so melt the chocolate and butter while the cream is still warm.
- Once the mixture is smooth, sift and add 2 Tbsp matcha (green tea powder) into the mixture.
- Mix and combine together until the color is homogeneous.
- Into a prepared the baking dish lined with parchment paper, pour the green tea chocolate mixture.
- Tap the baking dish a few times on the kitchen countertop to remove any air bubbles. Flatten the surface with the rubber spatula if necessary. Refrigerate for 4–5 hours (or overnight).
- Lift the parchment paper to remove the green tea chocolate from the baking dish. Run the sharp knife under hot water to warm up the knife and wipe it dry completely.
- Slice the 8- x 8-inch (20 x 20 cm) chocolate block into 4 smaller squares, then cut each square into 9 small pieces.
- Dust 2 tsp matcha (green tea powder) on top of the chocolate. Store the chocolate in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Serve chilled.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in the refrigerator for 2–3 days, but it‘s best to enjoy it sooner.
Notes
- Make sure the bowls and utensils you are using are perfectly dry. Even a small amount of water/steam can “seize” the chocolate melting process.
- When buying white chocolate, make sure that it contains cocoa butter because some inferior brands contain vegetable fat. White chocolate should be ivory-colored (white chocolate made with vegetable fat is white-colored).
- The fat content for heavy (whipping) cream is 38%, which is used to whip cream.
- Separation (oil came out of the chocolate) happens when you get the chocolate too hot. When chocolate gets too hot, the cocoa butter separates from the solids, and there is no way to salvage it (although you can bake with it and it tastes fine). The best way to prevent separation is to use gentle heat (simmer on lowest heat) and stir frequently. Since we’re not using a double boiler in this recipe, make sure you do not bring the heavy whipping cream to a full boil. Remove from heat as soon as you saw bubbles around the edges of the saucepan.
- Seizing happens when moisture is introduced to melted chocolate (even a tiny amount of liquid or steam). It happens all of a sudden from a smooth bowl of liquid chocolate to a lumpy, grainy mass of chocolate.
Excellent recipe! I used Cadbury white cooking chocolate blocks as they have the butter cream (the choc bits are made from animal fat and not suitable for this recipe).
It turned out perfectly and exactly the right level of green tea texture.
I’m also curious about freezing it because it makes a lot and not everyone in the house enjoys sweet chocolate or green tea flavourings.
Either way, the softer texture and fresh cream makes it so perfect. The taste reminds me of the green tea chocolate in the Daiso but it’s so much better than the hard shelf chocolates!
I’ll definitely be making this again!
Hi Matt! Thanks so much for your feedback. I’m so happy to hear yours came out well and thanks for trying this recipe. You can freeze them if you like, but eat soon. 🙂
I love Royce chocolate and this recipe comes very close to it.
The only improvement I want to make is to make it less sweet – the Japanese way.
I used Ghirardelli White Chocolate and it has 9 grams of sugar per serving (14g).
Any recommendation on a different brand to try?
Hi Natalie! So happy to hear you liked this recipe and thanks for your kind feedback! It’s really hard to find a good quality white chocolate. If I find, I’ll try and update in the note! 🙂
Can i use this chocolate again in baking? will it melt properly?
Hi Chris! Hmmm I haven’t tried that… sorry I wish I could tell.
Hi nami! Why did you add butter to this white chocolate nama while the dark chocolate nama didnt need to? What’s the difference? 🙂
Hi ChuC! You can add it to both. The recipes are slightly different. 🙂
Will the texture be smoother and more stiff if we add butter? 😊
Smoother with additional fat. 🙂
Noted. Thanks Nami! Hope to see more flavors/ recipes next time!!
Hi Chuc! Okay, I’ll add to my list of recipes to try (it’s a long list, but this way I won’t forget). 🙂
Easy and delicious! I love matcha and white chocolate. I must admit, mine came out a little grainy because I made this recipe because I was trying to use up inferior white chocolate chips. Also, the pan fell over crooked in the refrigerator so it came out all crooked. But I reheated it and did it again and it worked fine. Still tastes great!
Hi Cindy! I’m so happy you enjoyed this recipe and thanks for your feedback! 🙂
I am wondering if I can use coconut oil instead of butter in this recipe? Thank you!
Hi Nora! Sure, that “should” work, I think (since I’ve never tried that before). 🙂
Hi!
Because of the virus, we’ve been on lock down and on my last trip to the supermarket i was only able to get 3 bars of lindt white chocolate
in ur recipe it says 400g of chocolate but four bars, that would mean 500 grams. so my question is, did you measure the chocolate in weight or did you put all four chopped bars of chocolate in there?
this recipe looks amazing, i’m making it for my sisters birthday today :))
Hi Ariel! My recipe is 400 g and I’m sorry the way I wrote introduced a bit of confusion. What I meant was that you will need to buy 4 bars, but you have to weigh the chocolate to get a total of 400 g (basically don’t use all of 4 bars). I’m sorry about the confusion. I edited my Notes.
Nami-san, can I substitute white chocolate with pure cocoa butter? If so, should I just use 400g of the butter then?
Hi Deb! Hmmm I haven’t tried it and I’m not too sure… if you try, please let us know how it went. 🙂
[…] Matcha Cookies or homemade Green Tea Chocolate […]
Only one thing to say YUM!
Thank you Desiree! xo
For some reason, my result ended up being sticky and chewy. It was hard to remove from he parchment paper, and even harder to cut into pieces (it tasted great though). What should I do to fix this and where could I have gone wrong?
Hi Isha! Thanks so much for trying this recipe! Was the chocolate still chilled when you cut? If you leave it out for a long time when you cut, it is kind of melted and sticky. It should be cut when cold, then served chilled. Nama Chocolate is kept chilled all times. Hope this helps?
Thank you once again for a great recipe Nami! I made them with matcha and also a version with kinako (because I can never get enough kinako!). So good!
The easiest way to salvage separated or grainy chocolate is to get a hand whisk or hand blender and, while beating on a slow setting, add a teaspoon at a time of warm milk, until it comes back together. You may need to add more flavouring to balance the extra fluid. This will bring the ganache back together and nice and smooth. 🙂 https://www.santabarbarachocolate.com/blog/how-to-fix-a-broken-ganache/
Hi JJ! Kinako version!!!!! YUM. I have to try that one day…. =P
And thank you so much for sharing the tip on how to salvage the broken chocolate!
[…] American heavy cream or heavy whipping cream (they are the same thing) has 36%-38 fat content. The ratio of heavy (whipping) cream (gram/ml) and chocolate (gram) should be 1:2. For this recipe, please do not replace chocolate with white chocolate (which I used in Green Tea Chocolate). […]
[…] American heavy cream or heavy whipping cream (they are the same thing) has 36%-38 fat content. The ratio of heavy (whipping) cream (gram/ml) and chocolate (gram) should be 1:2. For this recipe, please do not replace chocolate with white chocolate (which I used in Green Tea Chocolate). […]
thank you for sharing this recipe Nami….I was introduced to Royce chocolates while in Kyoto and brought much home w me for family and friends. Sadly i gave much away and didn’t save enough for myself. i particularly love the green tea chocolate and look forward to trying this recipe. Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Karen! I’m happy to hear you got to trying Royce chocolate from Japan! Hope you enjoy making this chocolate. Choose good quality white chocolate to make this recipe successful! 🙂