A delicious mouthful with energy-boosting matcha, the green tea taking the world by storm and not just in a teacup.  In this easy no-bake recipe the matcha marries beautifully with the creaminess of the caramel and the marzipan almond.  These are luxurious yet healthy chocolate-covered matcha marzipans and date caramels.  There’s no need to find a food processor for the maple syrup marzipans which take just minutes to make plus you can dust them in cocoa or play around with other flavours!

RECIPES

Let’s start with the marzipan chocolates.  These quantities make around 14 to 16 discs or balls.

Matcha maple-syrup marzipans

• 100g/1 cup ground almonds
• 1 and a half teaspoons matcha green tea (or cheaper green tea) powder, to taste
• a pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup (sorry, the expensive stuff) or a little more for a moister marzipan
• a quarter teaspoon bitter almond essence, to taste (or vanilla essence)
• 60-70g of 70% good quality dark chocolate (Lindt do a nice mild one)
• some almonds for decoration – optional: toasted

Variations

Orange blossom water marzipan – replace the matcha with 1 teaspoon of orange blossom water and use just five or so drops of bitter almond essence, to taste.  Decorate with a little piece of candied orange peel.

Plain marzipan – omit the matcha.

Instead of covering with chocolate you can dust your marzipans with cocoa and flavour with vanilla essence or rose water.  But adding a few drops of bitter almond essence really gives you that marzipan magic.

Chocolate-covered matcha date caramels

Please follow my salted date caramels recipe here, adding 1 and a half to 2 teaspoons of matcha or other green tea powder to the mixture.  Follow the recipe to cover your caramels in chocolate then sprinkle on a little matcha powder.

Notes 

1. Good-quality chocolate works best.
   
2. Quantities:  for caramels made with 200g of dates plus the above quantity of marzipan sweets, I used 200g of dark 70% mild Lindt chocolate and had a little left over.  If you have extra chocolate you can make Mendiants with nuts or other bits and pieces.
3. Assembly and tempering:  have all your stuff ready for assembly as you need to work quickly with the chocolate before it hardens, especially if it’s been tempered.  If they’re a gift or you’re keeping them a few days for visitors you temper the chocolate to keep your treats shiny, crispy hard and resistant to melting.  There are instructions on my tempering chocolate page.

Anyway, you can see this is a pretty relaxing recipe you could make with kids to have fun creating a selection of them.  And they’re brilliant if you’re feeling peckish or have a sweet craving.

Storing and eating

You can store the marzipans and date caramels in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.  Before eating, take the marzipans out for half an hour so they soften up at room temperature.  You can keep the date caramels in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.

Dates are quite high in sugar so it’s best not to eat too many caramels in one go.  Though actually the dates or almonds seem to settle my stomach when it’s starting to complain!  I’ve read they help regulate blood sugar and aid digestion, amongst other health benefits detailed here.  I’ll put my increased glow and happiness down to the whole ensemble including the chocolate.  And the look of them.  I’m just visualising them waiting for me in the fridge.  Contented sigh…

I think we all deserve some nice pâtisserie-style chocolates.  Yay!  🙂  So do help yourself.

Wishing you a contented healthy but sweet week dear reader!  Happy baking, no-baking and eating! 🙂 x

P.S.  After my recent nutty kitchen experiments these have been such a relaxing treat!  And I think my chocolate tempering skills are improving with practice… I’m getting faster and ever so slightly less messy! 🙂