I am a huge matcha green tea fan. I have been wanting to create a dessert with matcha powder for some time, now. I mean, matcha is green. It's a perfect natural food coloring and flavor to include in some sweet treats for Christmas. This fudge recipe is super simple. If you are not a matcha fan, you can easily omit the powder and replace with a splash of green food coloring and you will get the same look, yet different flavor. Without matcha, the fudge will be vanilla, not bad. You may want to add a splash of vanilla extract, as well, if removing the matcha from the recipe. Eat up and be merry! xo RCN
Recipe yields about 24-26 fudge pops. You will need the following:
13 Wooden popsicle sticks, cut in half
4 Mini candy canes, crushed/smashed with a large knife
1/4 cup (or less) shredded coconut, can be sweetened or unsweetened
2 Tbsp of green matcha powder, I used U Matcha Natural green tea powder from Whole Foods
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 Cup heavy whipping cream
14oz White chocolate morsels, I used Ghirardelli chips, (just over 1 1/2 cups)
8" or similar size small square baking pan, line with wax paper
Small saucepan
Sifter (for matcha powder)
Rubber spatula
Prep by cutting popsicle sticks in half. Crush and smash candy canes into small pieces for topping. Chop butter into small pieces, similar in size to white chocolate chips. Line square pan with wax paper OR use a freezer ziplock bag to line pan, like me, if you are out of wax paper.
In small saucepan on stove, begin heating whipping cream on medium heat. The cream will heat quickly, you will want to stir with rubber spatula as it heats up. As soon as it begins to bubble, remove from heat and add chocolate and butter. Mix the butter and chips into the cream quickly with the spatula. As it begins to combine and harden, sift the matcha powder into the pan. Continue to mix all ingredients together until thick and smooth and green tea powder is evenly combined. Pour fudge mixture into 8" pan lined with wax paper. Pour and spread fudge to be about 1" thick all around. The fudge does not have to be touching all sides of pan, as long as it has an edge butted up against the wax paper. Refer to my pic above for example. Sprinkle candy cane pieces evenly across top of fudge. Refrigerate for a few hours until fudge is firm and set. Remove fudge from pan and cut into four quadrants. Pull fudge pieces from paper and begin cutting triangle shapes. Use cutting guideline below to help cut trees. Refer to guide: Begin with thicker dotted lines and continue to cut all dotted lines shown in guide.
Note: Guideline below cuts about 24 trees, but you may have extra scraps that can be formed into additional trees. I had extra scraps from the beginning, when I cut my solid piece of fudge into an even square before I cut triangles out.
Last step is to push cut popsicle sticks into center bottom of each tree and add coconut to tops of trees. The shortest side of triangle will be your bottom of tree. Push coconut into all sides of top of trees. The fudge will be firm so you will need to push the coconut inward firmly in order to make the coconut stick onto fudge. If trees look sparse with candy cane coating, add some additional at end to make the trees look more cheery. If not all triangles are perfect, even better, they will all be unique. Big, crooked, or small, they will all taste great.
