Matcha Coconut Cookie Bars

Why “Matcha Coconut Cookie Bars” ?

Since the day I tried  the green tea ice cream with sweet red been sauce for the first time back in Vietnam in a Japanese cafe, I have been enchanted by the freshness and purity of the Japanese matcha green tea.

In fact, matcha tea is an easy and simple way to add powerful health benefits to your everyday diet with its magical health benefits. It is packed with antioxidants, helps to lower cholesterol and blood sugar, keeps our minds calm and relaxes our bodies.

I personally think deserts are not necessarily to be too sweet

I honestly have to admit that, there are many deserts out there in the restaurants or cafes, bakeries are far too sweet for my taste. For this reason, in any desert recipes that you will find in this blog, I tried to reduce the sugar to the max and tried to add in other ingredients which contain more natural sweetness either as a substitution or to give the final products a balance of the taste.

After baking these Matcha Coconut Cookie Bars last night, I cut them into pieces and packed them into three containers. One I gave to my husband to bring to the office to share with his colleagues this morning. One I save for my parents-in-law when we are going to visit them tonight and the rest is of course for us :).

Here is the feed back I got from my husband’s colleagues through his short text message around lunch time today:  “yes..everyone loved the texture, moist and flavour and quote “was amazing”. I was so happy that everyone seems to enjoy my for-the-first-time matcha coconut cookie bars a lot.

Personally, what I love about these matcha coconut cookie bars is the freshness, the calmness that the green tea brings to my mind, my soul together with the nutty and citrus flavour from the almond and mixed peal.

So….Are you ready to bake this for your soul? If yes, do not forget to enjoy it with a cup of green tea. It will bring you to the relaxation that you need after a long day.

I hope you will enjoy it!

Please, click here for more information about matcha green tea’s health benefit

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/4 cup plain flour
• 3/4 cup almond meal
• 3/4 cup desiccated coconut
• 1 tea spoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 table spoons matcha green tea powder
• 1/6 tea spoon salt
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 tea spoon vanilla extract
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 4 table spoons mixed peal
• 1/3 cup almond, chopped
• 1/3 cup white chocolate chip

METHOD

1. in a large mixing bowl, mix all dried ingredients ( flour, almond meal, desiccated coconut, baking powder, sugar, matcha green tea powder, salt) well until blend
2. in a small bowl, mix all the melted butter, eggs, vanilla extract, milk well
3. pour all the ingredients from small bowl into the big bowl and gently fold all the ingredients together with a spatula
4. add the rest of ingredients (mixed peal, almond, chocolate chip) in
5. preheat oven at 180 °C
6. Spay / brush a baking tray / dish with olive oil and pour all batter in and bake for about 25 – 30 minutes
7. Take the tray / dish out of oven and let it cool down before cutting