Experiments in green cheese

I'd been wanting to make a cheesecake ever since I saw Peabody's Donna Hay event. Ryan had made some green tea muffins for St Patrick's day, and the two ideas converged - Green Tea Cheesecake!

The green tea muffins were OK, but not as green as we wanted. If we could have put our hands on some Matcha Powder, they would have been greener. Instead, we ground up some normal green tea as a substitute. We had more than enough left over for the cheese cake.

Green tea is a great flavouring because it's mild but pervasive. Teamed with something stronger, and more easily identifiable (like lemon) it gives a nice herby undertone, without being too savoury. Matcha powder, used for tea ceremonies in Japan, is finely ground green sencha tea leaves. It's a really lurid colour. Our ground tea leaves were fairly grey, so not nearly as picturesque.

To make the cheese cake, we followed the recipe posted by Peabody. I left out the lemon zest, and brewed the green tea powder in the lemon juice (which I heated in the microwave).

I don't think the picture proves anything, except that I need more practice making cheesecake - it sunk a little, and stuck to the sides a lot. The colour, not particularly green. But not offputtingly brown either. It tasted really good though - the ricotta lightens the texture from your normal baked cheesecake and the tea added some subtle herby undertones. I will probably make this again, but I'll wait until I can find some matcha!