Matcha No Bake Cheesecake with Pocky Granola

Say that ten times fast.

A rich, creamy matcha no bake cheesecake with a crust made out of Matcha Pocky granola is the dessert you need. Like, right now.

Last week, I hosted a pop up night at The Kingston Social House, the place where I have been cheffing since last fall and hosting supperclubs and cooking classes for the last couple of years. It's like my home kitchen away from home but better, because my actual home kitchen is about 2 square feet. I decided on a Korean inspired comfort food menu consisting of a Kimchi Meatloaf Melt, Spicy Miso Soup with Korean rice cakes for the vegetarians and a variety of banchan style sides. Korean's aren't really known for their desserts so it took me longer than usual to come up with something until I bought a few packs of Matcha Pocky. If you aren't familiar with Pocky, you need to do something about that. Pocky are a biscuit stick with a coating of "cream" that is usually chocolate flavoured but they do have other interesting flavours like strawberry and green tea and they are surprisingly addictive.

The Korean version is called Pepero and although the almond Pepero is my absolute favourite, they don't make a green tea version so I defer to Pocky when it comes to matcha.

I tried a ton of different things for the crust to go in the bottom of the dessert but nothing was working for me. Because it's a no bake cheesecake, a straight up cookie crust just didn't give enough crunch. Then I made a batch of granola using pretzels and pocky.
Oh
Ma
Ga
The result was a not-too-sweet granola that was the perfect foil to the very sweet cheesecake and with a very faint hint of green tea that hits you a few seconds after you start chewing. The granola is wonderful on it's own as well, so don't NOT make it just because you don't want to make the cheesecake.

I added one package of Korean Gosomi bisquits to the crust. These are delightful little crisp, thin, cracker like cookies that taste of sesame and coconut and are not terribly sweet. You can't miss the distinctive yellow packaging, all featuring old timey drawings of ladies doing various activities like riding kick bikes and tricycles with giant front wheels, so be on the lookout at your local Asian grocer but if you can't find these, you can throw in a few mildly flavoured biscuits of your choice.

Matcha No Bake Cheesecake with Pocky Granola

makes enough for about 8 small 100 ml mason jars

Matcha Pocky Granola

yields about 5 1/2 cups

2 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cups candied, sesame coated nuts but you can use any candied nut
1/2 cup pretzels
1 70 gram pack of matcha pocky
1/4 cup of honey or brown rice syrup
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 300F

Pulse the nuts, pretzels and the pocky in a food processor until it's fine enough for granola but not totally powdered - you want small pebbles.

Mix the oats, pretzels, pocky, sesame seeds and salt in a medium sized bowl

Mix the honey/rice syrup and the oil in a bowl and microwave it for about 30 seconds, just to melt the coconut oil and then stir to combine.

Mix the oil/honey mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until the dry is completely coated in the wet.

Line a baking pan with parchment and spread the mixture out evenly.

Bake for 40 - 45 minutes, checking on it after about 35 minutes and taking it out when it's toasty brown. If you want big clumps, don't stir it but otherwise, stir once after about 25 minutes.
Remove from the heat and let it cool.

Crust:
To make the crust, Put about a cup of granola with 1 small pack of Gosomi biscuits (approx 42 g) in a mini food processor and whiz it up until it resembles cookie crumbs. Mix that with 2 tbls of melted butter.

put enough granola/butter in each jar (or ramekin or clear, short glass) to just cover the bottom and use another, small, flat bottomed juice glass to tamp it down. Put them in the fridge while you prepare the cheesecake.

Cheesecake

filled about 8 small mason jars

1 8oz package of cream cheese, room temperature
2 tbls lemon juice
1 cup whipping cream
170 g (1/2 tin) of sweetened condensed milk
2 tsp matcha powder

Whip the cream cheese, lemon juice until it's very soft and creamy and lump free. Add in the condensed milk and matcha powder and whip just until its totally incorporated.

In another bowl, whip the whipping cream until you get stiff peaks. Fold that into the cream cheese mixture by hand until fully incorporated.

You can either spoon the cream cheese mixture into your jars or ramekins by hand or, if you are using clear glass cups or jars, spoon it into a pastry bag and pipe it in. I find that spooning the cheesecake mixture in with a spoon gets very sloppy and with clear glass, it looks nicer when you pipe it in.
Use a spoon to smooth out the top, wipe off any that has gotten onto the rim of the jar and store in the fridge for a least 4 to 6 hours, or, preferably overnight.

To serve:

1 cup whipping cream
1-2 tbls sugar
a tsp or two of matcha powder

Whip up another cup of whipping cream with a tbls or two of added sugar (sweetness is up to you and if you really want to, get a can of Real Dairy whipped cream and I won't tell on you).

You can either spoon a dollop of whipped cream on each cheesecake right before serving or use a piping bag ( or the can - I will pretend I don't see it)

Put a pinch of matcha powder in a fine strainer and tap it over the jars to dust each with just a light sprinkle of green tea powder.

Finish with a final dash of granola and a couple of poky sticks for good measure.

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