Desserts Collection: Green Tea Ice-Cream with Green Tea Macaron "wafer"!

Seriously, when I was making this, am not sure I was going green-tea or ice-cream frenzy!  After working on Jan 2011 Daring Bakers Challenge (shhh...can't wait for 27th to reveal this!), I had lots of egg yolks remaining and wasn't quite sure how to use them all.  At the end, I decided to make ice-creams and at one go, I was making 3 different ice-cream flavours and one of them that I was meaning to try was green-tea.  I find the recipe I had used to make the black sesame ice-cream is so versatile, just need to substitute the ground black sesame with exact measurement of green tea - http://privatekitchenjourney.blogspot.com/2011/01/desserts-collection-black-sesame-ice.html

Also, I had meant to try making green-tea macarons and thought how about the macarons acting like an ice-cream wafer?!  Hence, I ended up drawing 4 circles, slightly bigger than an ice-cream scooper and also ended up with quite a bit of macaron batter which I pipe them into the normal macaron size circles.  Next came the decision as to what filling to make and I ended up making a green tea butter-cream with the remaining egg yolks.   When I was done with all that and started plating up and tasting them, OMG, I must be in green tea heaven!!!  Anyways, for big fans of green tea or one with an adventurous taste bud, below are the recipes for you to try - enjoy!!!

Green Tea Macarons
(Yield 4 pikelet size macarons and 18-20 pairs of normal size macarons)
Ingredients:
125g ground almonds
125g icing sugar
100g caster sugar
100g egg whites at room temperature
25g icing sugar
5g green tea powder
a pinch of cream of tartar

Method:
1) In a food processor, whiz the ground almonds and 125g of icing sugar until fine, about 5 minutes.  Using a sifter, sieve it into a separate bowl.
2) Add cream of tartare and egg whites into a mixer and whipped until foamy.  Slowly add caster sugar in 2-3 batches and continue whipping until just at firm stage.
3) Add the icing sugar and ground almonds mixture in 3 batches to the whipped egg whites and using a silicon spatula, stir until just incorporated.
4) Sieve the remaining icing sugar and green tea powder into 3) and stir until just incorporated.
5) Using either a silicon spatula or a scrapper, knead the dough until smooth and shiny, around 40 - 50 times. 
6) Pour dough into piping bag and pipe onto a non-stick baking paper (or silicon mat) placed on a baking sheet into the size desire.  (NOTE: Would be helpful to draw circles on the non-stick baking paper before starting so that u have consistent size of macarons.).  If the pipe out dough does not have a smooth top, tap sheet on the bench a couple times to smooth out the dough.  Let stand for about 30 minutes or until the top is dry (when you touch the top, it does not stick to your fingers).
7) Bake in 150C fan force pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes (for normal size macarons) or 30 minutes for pikelet size macarons. (NOTE:  Before pre-heating the oven, put a baking sheet in the oven rack as it needs to be double stack, meaning the baking sheet with the pipe macarons will go on top of another baking sheet which has been in the oven while it is being preheated.)

Green Tea Butter-Cream
Ingredients:
50ml milk
1 tsp green tea powder or more if you like a stronger green-tea taste
60gm soften butter
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 egg yolks

Method:
1) Heat milk in small saucepan until it boils slightly.  Remove from heat, pour green tea powder into the milk and cover with lid for about 8-10 minutes
2) In another bowl, whisk egg yolks with caster sugar until whitish in colour.  While whisking, pour milk and green tea into the egg yolk mixture.  Continue whisking until incorporated.
3) Pour yolks and milk mixture back to saucepan and on medium low heat, whisk the mixture continuously until thick and creamy.  Remove from heat.  Pour mixture into a mixer.  At this stage, the mixer bowl will feel very hot. 
4) Whip the mixture until it is at room temperature. (To gauge that, feel the side of the mixing bowl.  If it feels cool, the mixture is at room temperature). 
5) At this stage, add the butter in 3-4 additions and continue whipping until mixture is smooth and has a thick consistency.  Use a spoon and stir mixture until incorporated.  Place in piping bag and pipe into cool macarons.  (note:  Filled macarons can be stored in an airtight container and freeze or refrigerated.  It can be stored from 2-4 weeks in the freezer (if it last that long not eaten up!) or 5 days in the fridge.)