Sadaharu Aoki · Since 2001
Bamboo, the matcha opera
Sadaharu Aoki’s Bamboo takes the Paris opera cake, layers of almond sponge, buttercream and ganache, and turns it green with matcha: a rectangle so exact it looks printed, and the dessert that put Japanese tea into French pastry.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A cup of sencha, or a coffee for contrast.
The opera cake was created in Paris in the 1950s, coffee syrup, coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache in thin layers under a glossy glaze. Aoki, a Tokyo pastry chef in Paris, replaced the coffee with matcha from Uji in 2001, kept the chocolate and cut the cake into bars with a green glaze and a stripe. Bamboo became the emblem of his boutiques in both cities and of the matcha wave that followed everywhere.
It is bitter, green, buttery and chocolate at once: the Paris-Tokyo axis in a slice.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- 3 eggs, 100 g ground almonds, 100 g icing sugar, 30 g flour, 3 whites, 30 g sugar for the joconde sponge
- 10 g matcha in the sponge and 8 g in the buttercream
- 200 g butter, 100 g sugar, 3 yolks for the buttercream
- 150 g dark chocolate, 150 ml cream for the ganache
- 100 ml syrup with 1 tsp matcha for soaking
- 100 g white chocolate, 5 g matcha for the glaze
Method
- Bake a thin matcha joconde sponge on a tray at 200 °C for 8 minutes; cut into three rectangles.
- Make a matcha buttercream: whisk yolks with hot sugar syrup, beat in soft butter and matcha.
- Make the ganache with hot cream over chopped chocolate.
- Layer: sponge soaked in matcha syrup, buttercream, sponge, ganache, sponge, buttercream; chill between layers.
- Glaze with melted white chocolate tinted with matcha, chill and cut into clean bars with a hot knife.
Where to taste it
