The most famous matcha chocolate is the Royce Nama chocolate. But did you know you can easily make it at home?
As it's one of our favourite chocolate Japanese snacks, we couldn't help but figure out how to make it. So, here's our easy matcha white chocolate recipe. We've perfected it to achieve a silky smooth texture and earthy yet sweet taste that's similar to Royce Nama choco.
We've also included our vegan matcha chocolate recipe for those who have never been able to try the store-bought version of this truffle like sweet.
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What Is Matcha Chocolate Made Of?
Matcha chocolate is a form of cocoa confectionery that uses heavy cream and white chocolate to make a soft, chewy, truffle-like dessert. However, matcha chocolate may refer to any choco-based sweet containing green tea flavouring.
In Japanese, "nama" means uncooked. Since you make the ganache using fresh cream and cacao, this indicates its purity and freshness. You can make this Japanese treat by chilling a thick ganache until it solidifies and topping it with dusted cocoa powder.
The dessert is then cut into perfect squares or cubes and stored in a tray. The confectioners usually store the pieces slightly separated from each other to prevent sticking. Their texture is similar to a fudgy, less sweet truffle.
Matcha Chocolate Ingredients
The ingredients you will need to make our easy matcha chocolate recipe are white chocolate, heavy cream, unsalted butter, glucose syrup, and green tea powder.
White chocolate
White chocolate is an important ingredient in our recipe. The quality of this ingredient is fundamental in deciding the final product's richness. We like to use plain white milk chocolate as this will make the green tea's colour more visible. We recommend using a high-quality bar such as Couverture, Lindt, Ghirardelli, or Valrhona. If you're using a cheaper quality alternative, our recipe will still work but might not taste as silky.
Cream
Heavy cream is the base of the ganache. It gives the sweet its soft and velvety texture. You must ensure that you use high-quality cream instead of the shelf-stable alternative.
Butter
Unsalted butter adds an extra source of creamy fat and richness to the recipe. You shouldn't substitute it with salted butter as it will change the delicate green tea flavour.
Make sure to use butter that contains milk fat instead of butter that contains vegetable oil.
Glucose Syrup
We like to add glucose syrup to our matcha chocolate recipe. It helps set the bar into a smooth texture without any sugar crystallisation. In addition, glucose syrup doesn't sweeten the dessert too much. However, we understand that glucose syrup is not an ingredient in most supermarkets. So, a simple substitute you can use is golden syrup.
To prove it works as an easy substitute, we used golden syrup as a substitute when we made our recipe. Golden syrup is made of partially inverted refined sugar. There is still a small chance of the sugars crystallising when setting the chocolate. However, we found it an acceptable substitute for glucose syrup.
Matcha powder
Finally, green tea powder is the most crucial ingredient in our recipe. We love using ceremonial-grade green tea powder in our recipe. As the rest of the ingredients have a mild or neutral flavour, you can really appreciate the nuanced flavours of the green tea.
However, various grades and price points exist in the market. You can see our guide on the best matcha powder for a few we recommend. Alternatively, you can use high-quality culinary or low-quality ceremonial-grade green tea powder for our recipe.
Matcha Chocolate Recipe, Royce Nama Choco
Ingredients
- 200 g white chocolate
- 1¼ tablespoon matcha powder
- ½ tablespoon glucose syrup or golden syrup
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon matcha powder for dusting
Instructions
- Firstly, sift the matcha powder into a bowl. Chop the white chocolate into pieces to help it melt faster. Cube the butter and line your baking dish (preferably square shaped) with baking paper.
- Add the heavy cream to a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir the mixture constantly so it doesn't catch and burn at the bottom of the pot. Remove the pan from the heat when the cream's edges start bubbling or you have achieved a light simmer.
- Add the butter and the chopped chocolate to the pot and stir it constantly until combined. Gradually sift the green tea powder into the saucepan. Stir the mixture until incorporated before adding some more.
- Slowly add the glucose syrup or golden syrup and continue to stir until combined.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Refrigerate for at least 5 hours or overnight. After removing the dessert from the fridge, gently peel off the paper.
- Measure and mark perfectly neat squares. Cut the white chocolate into squares with a heated knife. Wipe the blade clean after each cut.
- Dust it with more green tea powder. Finally, serve the matcha chocolate slightly chilled and enjoy.
Notes
- For the best texture, you must give these at least 5 hours to set in the fridge. Depending on how you cut it, you can get 12 small pieces or 9 large pieces with our recipe.
- While it is unnecessary, we recommend using ceremonial grade matcha if possible.
- You can replace glucose syrup with golden syrup instead. However, as golden syrup is made of partially inverted refined sugar, you might get some small sugar crystals.
- If you are vegan or cannot have dairy, look at the "How to Make it Vegan" section for detailed instructions.
- You will need a fine mesh sift for the green tea powder.
- You will also need a square or rectangular baking dish that will fit in the fridge. You can also use a plastic container, as we won't be using the oven to make the chocolate.
Nutrition
Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and is only a rough estimate.
Cooking Tips
Other than preparing all the ingredients beforehand, here are some cooking tips to help you get the best texture and presentation for our recipe.
How To Create A Silky Texture
The green tea powder might not mix well into the chocolate if it's not smooth or silky enough. To avoid this, you can add the green tea powder to the cacao mixture bit by bit. Make sure to stir the powder until it's entirely dissolved before adding the next batch.
How To Avoid Clumping Matcha Powder
The mixture will clump if the matcha powder you use is not separated. Green tea powder will naturally clump together when there's moisture in the fine powder.
If you have a sift, sift the powder into a bowl to remove any lumps from the beautifully silky mixture. You could also try whisking the green tea powder. Alternatively, you can mash it with a fork to break up bigger clumps.
To really make sure there are no clumps, our recipe calls for sifting the powder twice. Once when preparing the ingredients and another time when mixing them with the other ingredients.
How To Cut Perfect Cubes
Measure the dessert's dimensions to get perfectly even cubes. Before cutting, use a ruler and knife to make small indentations along the dessert bar.
Make sure your homemade Royce nama dessert is completely set before cutting. Heat the knife under hot water or over a stove before cutting. Please make sure that the blade is not dripping with water.
After each cut, you should clean off the knife to ensure the lines are perfectly straight and no chocolate builds up between slices.
How To Make Matcha Chocolate Vegan
Unfortunately, most flavours and types of this Royce dessert are not vegan-friendly. They are also unsuitable for lactose-intolerant people. However, you can easily make Royce nama choco into a vegan Japanese snack with a few minor tweaks our ingredients list and cooking method.
Instead of heavy cream, you can substitute it with the same amount of cashew or coconut cream. However, if you use coconut cream it will add a coconut flavour. Therefore, we would increase the amount of matcha used. This is so the coconut flavour won't overpower the entire dessert.
You can easily replace unsalted butter and white chocolate with vegan alternatives. So, vegans and lactose-intolerant people can use our recipe to make dairy-free vegan matcha chocolate without any fear.
Matcha Chocolate Calories
A single serving of this dessert (about two pieces) contains 200 calories. However, the calories are small enough to fit into all diets, so you can enjoy this Japanese treat with a little less guilt.
How To Store
These delicious treats will stay in the fridge for up to 3 days. Make sure to store them covered. Do not stack them, as they will stick. You can also freeze them for up to a month. Thaw them in the fridge for around 15-20 minutes before eating.
And that's a wrap. We hope you have enjoyed learning how to make this premium, deluxe matcha chocolate. You can make it from the comfort of your own home. Our recipe is straightforward and is an excellent project to do with children.
Love all things matcha? Try our matcha latte recipe next.
Krissy Makovec
I appreciate that matcha can be enjoyed both hot and cold. It's a versatile drink that can be customized to your preferences.