Recipe: flavored green tea cookies! PERFECTED!

[cimorene]

My motivations for finding a recipe for tea leaf cookies were two: 1) I said to myself out of the blue one day "I feel the craving for something like a green tea cookie. I wonder if that exists?" and also 2) I have a bag of extremely shitty-quality, way over-flavored, over-sweetened white person green tea leaves that are fucking unimbibable in traditional tea form but I didn't want to throw them away.

(broken images)

The tea used is Nordqvist "Nippon Green"¹ tea, which is flavored with thistle, strawberry, and about a boatload of vanilla.


Green tea leaf cookies
modified from Earl Grey tea cookies
32 cookies

4,8 dL white flour (2 cups)
1,2 dL sugar (½ cup) (additional sugar, perhaps half a deciliter or so, as topping)
1,2 dL confectioner's sugar (½ cup)

1 Tbsp sweetened, fruit-flavored green tea leaves
1 Tbsp unsweetened green tea leaves (eg sencha) Purchased powdered Japanese green tea, Matcha, is a far better alternative to this which mixes into cookie dough much more easily as well as doing a better job of conveying the flavor into the cookies - you don't want 2 whole Tbsp of it though. Be cautious, as it is strong - start small, blend thoroughly and taste, or make multiple test batches. I like about 1 Tbsp.

½ tsp salt
½ tsp vanilla
2 tsp water
200 g butter (1,75 sticks or 0,9 cups), softened but not melted
(green food coloring)

Preheat oven to 190°C/375°F.

Pulverize tea leaves as thoroughly as possible. (I used the food processor and added some flour as well for weight, but as you can see in the photos, it's not a super-effective method and you couldn't really describe the result as "pulverized". I found it more effective than mortar and pestle, though, and they are quite edible like this as well as looking nice, though I feel the experience could only be improved if they were more evenly distributed.)

Combine tea with other dry ingredients and mix. Add vanilla, water, and butter and mix well. Knead into a dough. Add food coloring if desired. Form the dough into a log about 4 cm in diameter on a piece of wax or parchment paper. Wrap the paper around and roll the log smooth. Freeze, or chill for at least 30-45 minutes.

When chilled, slice the log in 1 cm slices. Pour a bit of granulated sugar out and press each slice into it, coating both sides, before placing on baking sheets. Bake about 8-12 minutes, until edges just begin to brown. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks.






1. A flavor of Nordqvist that I like better is Lady Green, which is flavored with sakura and vanilla and, while still too sweet, is kind of palatable.

Comments

[brownbetty]

What were the cookies like, then? Did they justify the effort?

[cimorene]

Yes, that's why I said the recipe was perfected (or PERFECTED!). When I have perfected a cookie recipe, I write down all the little modifications so I can get them exactly right every time. They are like the exact epitome of what they should be and so delicious that they melt on the tongue, and they unfortunately are vanishing way too fast. They are obviously based on sugar cookies, so that is what the texture is like, firm but not quite crispy, with a slightly soft crumble. Coating them in granulated sugar makes them reminiscent of those Danish butter cookies you buy in tins, at least to my mind, and the way they melt on the tongue (when made thin) is also a little reminiscent of that. But the mixture of other flavors from the vanilla, bitter green tea, and aromatic fruit flavors from the froufy tea is just exquisite and entrancing!

[brownbetty]

Oooh! I am pleased to know this. *bookmarks*