I miss New York. Specifically, I miss taking a weekend out of my college student life to ride a six hour bus and spend two to three days pigging out and hitting up anywhere from 6-12 restaurants, cafes, and bakeries a day. Yeah, if you don’t believe me, please look at the below picture:

That’s all from just one day. Pastries from Dominique Ansel Bakery, By Chloe, Dough Doughnuts, and Bibble and Sip. And it was all pretty fucking delicious.

Pictured in there were also matcha cream puffs from Bibble & Sip. Now these cream puffs are pretty standard, but I wanted to give it a go and tackle making them myself. I miss going to New York, and these cream puffs were amongst one of the many desserts specifically that I miss. What makes them interesting is that they’re baked with a matcha sablage (the crunchy green layer), and stuffed with a light, smooth matcha custard.

When I first saw these pop up on social media, I was a skeptic. Mostly because for me, a matcha cream puff literally has matcha infused into the pate choux dough itself. But this cream puff doesn’t need the matcha in all three components for it to work. The full-on butteriness of the pastry rounds out the bitter notes of the matcha, giving it a milder finish. While aesthetically, the cream puff doesn’t get that full-on matcha look, the flavors work together, and that’s ultimately what you want or need in a dessert for it to be considered good. That restraint and editing.

For the pate choux:

1 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

4 eggs

1 stick unsalted butter

1 cup milk

A pinch of salt

Bring milk, butter, salt, and sugar to a simmer. Once butter is fully melted, add in the flour and stir to form the panade. Take off heat. Once cooled to just above room temperature, mix in the eggs, one at a time. Pipe into 1 1/2 inch drops on a nonstick baking surface, place on sablage, and bake, first at 425 degrees F for 10 minuets, then at 350 degrees F for another 18 minutes.

For the sablage:

3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon matcha powder

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

Whip together butter, matcha, and sugar. Fold in the flour. Mix into a dough ball. Refrigerate. Lightly dust a surface with flour and roll out the dough to 1/8th an inch. Cut out 2 inch circles, and freeze until solid.

For the pastry cream:

4 egg yolks

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup milk

2/3 cups heavy cream

A pinch of salt

2 tablespoons matcha powder

1 teaspoon gelatin powder + 1 tablespoon cold water

Bloom gelatin with water. Melt gelatin and matcha into the milk and cream. Whip egg yolks and cornstarch with sugar until they form ribbons. Temper the egg yolks with the matcha milk. Whip over heat until the mixture thickens, and pass through a strainer. Chill completely.

Assembly:

Transfer pastry cream to a piping bag. Pipe into the bottom of the completely cooled cream puffs.