Green Tea Cookies

[wine&dine]

I have been looking for a green tea cookie recipe. Does anyone have any recipes that would like to share? Thanks!

[M. Lucia]

I make green tea shortbread by just adding matcha (green tea powder) to my standard shortbread recipe.

2 sticks butter

3/4 cup xxx sugar (powdered sugar)

green tea powder to taste (less than a tbl)

1 tsp almond extract

pinch salt

2 cups flour

Combine flour, salt, and green tea powder, set aside. Cream butter and sugar. Add almond extract (optional). Add flour mixture to combine. Pat into disk and refrigerate until chilled. Roll out dough and cut into shapes. Chill dough again before baking. Prick all over with a fork and bake at 325 for about 20 minutes.

[CanadianBakin']

I don't have it with me but I can get it unless someone who gets the British version of Country Living can get it for you sooner. I don't think it's the last edition but the one before. It's for a chocolate chip green tea cookie. I imagine it would be a good place to start and you could adjust it to suite your taste. It takes green tea powder. I have no idea where you would buy it.

[JasonTrue]

I would recommend using about a two-three teaspoons of cooking matcha powder for a typical 2-3" 24-piece batch of cookies. You could do this with tea ceremony matcha, as I have sometimes done, but it will be unnecessarily extravagant.

Matcha comes in different grades; some is meant for drinking in tea ceremony, some is well suited for cooking. The cheaper grades are actually better suited for baking because you lose much of the nuance in baking and you won't be spending as much money. Tea ceremony matcha can be $7-35 for 30-60 grams; cooking matcha should generally be much more reasonably priced.

I have used sencha powder for cookies as well. I like it because it has a more complex taste than matcha, which tends to be bitter. But matcha's color is more dramatically green and the bitterness helps cut the sweetness of most American dessert recipes.

My favorite green tea cookie recipe is a simple butter-based drop cookie with pine nuts, and optionally, chunks of white chocolate. You can try your favorite cookie recipe but use matcha instead of other flavorings. I'll try to post a more precise recipe by Monday or so... I'm afraid I usually improvise and have never troubled myself to write down something useful enough for someone else to follow. I usually only use matcha and vanilla for flavorings; I would not add almond extract because I feel it would overwhelm the matcha flavor.

Good "powdered green tea" is made from the whole leaf of quality green tea, either Tencha in the case of matcha, or sencha leaves in the case of powdered sencha. It is not just a freeze-dried instant green tea along the lines of an instant coffee. But there are some lower-quality products on the market which may be something like that, and there are companies making supplies for bubble tea shops which might use other additives even if they are using some portion of real matcha.

You can often find green tea powders at your local Japanese food market. I also offer some on my own web site. For cooking matcha, see the Three Tree Tea page. You might also try the powdered sencha, which I also offer; that page has some other ideas for using powdered green tea.

I don't have it with me but I can get it unless someone who gets the British version of Country Living can get it for you sooner. I don't think it's the last edition but the one before. It's for a chocolate chip green tea cookie. I imagine it would be a good place to start and you could adjust it to suite your taste. It takes green tea powder. I have no idea where you would buy it.

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[helenjp]

Jason, that was a great response!

Green tea cookies that I have seen were very light-textured langue-de-chat types. I have made this type of cookie with a (washed and dried) salted cherry blossom on top, but that's because I love green and pink together. A tiny pinch of regular green tea leaves or a couple of black sesame seeds is good too.

I flipped through alllllll my recipe books and found that I only had one cookie recipe using green tea. It was a regular freezer-cookie roll 'n slice dough, using 1 tsp of matcha tea powder per scant cup of flour.

[Tepee]

Yummy...green tea cookies! So many gorgeous ideas.

Helen, your cherry blossom topped cookies sound so pretty! You must post pics the next time you make them. Didn't know cherry blossoms were edible.

[torakris]

tepee, not only are cherry blossoms edible they are delicious.

check out the cherry blossom thread

hhhmmmm... now think I know what I will send to you in thanks for the tea, especially since my kids ate the other stuff I had bought to send.

[Gastro888]

Where do you get cherry blossoms to use as decorations? Do you just get them off the tree and wash them? Or are they available in stores freeze dried?

[helenjp]

YOu can buy them salted, in small jars, usually wherever Japanese tea is sold.

You can salt your own - gather clean DOUBLE cherry blossoms, and pack them in coarse salt.

[Gastro888]

Thanks!

What is a double cherry blossom?

[helenjp]

prunus serrulata "kanzan" is probably the best-known double cherry blossom.

"Single" cherry blossoms have just 5 petals. "Double" varieties have many petals, in several layers, and some varieties look almost like pom-poms.

[Tepee]

hhhmmmm... now  think I know what I will send to you in thanks for the tea, especially since my kids ate the other stuff I had bought to send.

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[JasonTrue]

OK, slightly behind my original intended delivery of the recipe, but today I was able to make some matcha cookies.

For those interested in the recipe, please see my blog entry.

The recipe itself is simple, meant for one batch of about 16 drop cookies. You could add a bit more matcha than I did; I was a bit conservative. For more dramatic color and more bitterness, you could reasonably add a fair 1/2 teaspoon more.

My housemate felt the vanilla flavor was a little too strong, so you may want to reduce the suggested amount.

[kitwilliams]

Anyone tried making Snickerdoodles with Matcha? You could call them...

"Matcha doodle about nothing" cookies.

sorry.

couldn't resist!

Actually, I think I'll give it a try!

[kitwilliams]

Anyone tried making Snickerdoodles with Matcha?  You could call them...

"Matcha doodle about nothing" cookies.

sorry.

couldn't resist!

Actually, I think I'll give it a try!

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I DID give it a try and they are goooo-oood! My recipe calls for 360 grams of flour and I added a tablespoon of matcha. Next time I'll try 4 teaspoons instead...I think it could take a touch more of the tea flavor.

[JasonTrue]

Were you using matcha as a substitute for cinammon or in addition to it?

Anyone tried making Snickerdoodles with Matcha?  You could call them...

"Matcha doodle about nothing" cookies.

sorry.

couldn't resist!

Actually, I think I'll give it a try!

←

I DID give it a try and they are goooo-oood! My recipe calls for 360 grams of flour and I added a tablespoon of matcha. Next time I'll try 4 teaspoons instead...I think it could take a touch more of the tea flavor.

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[kitwilliams]

Were you using matcha as a substitute for cinammon or in addition to it?

I reduced the cinnamon considerably in the sugar/cinnamon coating -- the ratio was probably 1/4 tsp. to 200g of sugar. So there was a hint of cinnamon in addition to the matcha. Works well but, as I said, I think I'll add one more teaspoon of matcha next time. And there will be a next time.

[JasonTrue]

Final question, maybe :P is the matcha used only on the topping or also in the cookie dough itself?

Were you using matcha as a substitute for cinammon or in addition to it?

I reduced the cinnamon considerably in the sugar/cinnamon coating -- the ratio was probably 1/4 tsp. to 200g of sugar. So there was a hint of cinnamon in addition to the matcha. Works well but, as I said, I think I'll add one more teaspoon of matcha next time. And there will be a next time.

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[kitwilliams]

Final question, maybe :P is the matcha used only on the topping or also in the cookie dough itself?

I only used it in the dough, Jason. If you try it in the topping, let me know. I wasn't sure if it might burn. And, as I said, I'd put 4 tsps rather than 1 tbsp into the 360g of flour my recipe calls for.

[Tepee]

Just made a batch of Jason's cookies. Lovely! Reduced vanilla extract to 1/4 tsp and doubled the green tea powder. I didn't have any pine nuts, so I used sunflower seeds. Browned the cookies well because I prefer crisp cookies. The green tea flavor is quite subtle..will increase by one more tsp the next time.

Thanks, Jason, for the recipe.

Edited May 17, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[JasonTrue]

I believe you will get crispy cookies by baking until just the edges are brown. Mine were crisp in spite of the modest browning. The more brown the less the tea flavor will be there due to caramelization-like effects.

For softer cookies bake at 350F instead of 375F.

[Kiem Hwa]

I just ate some green tea cookies yesterday - I think they were shortbread, and they were dipped halfway into some chocolate

[Tepee]

I believe you will get crispy cookies by baking until just the edges are brown. Mine were crisp in spite of the modest browning. The more brown the less the tea flavor will be there due to caramelization-like effects.

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Looks as if I can't have both, huh? Crispiness and tea flavor at the same time.

[JasonTrue]

Like I said, mine were crispy. As the cookies cooled they became crispy. As far as I know the primary factors are baking temperature and to some extent the amount of butter and sugar. You will get "crispy" cookies from the drying out caused by longer baking, but 15 minutes @ 375F with lightly browned edges was more than adequate to get crispy ones for me.

Mine stayed crispy for about two days even without special storage, though Seattle is less humid than Kuala Lumpur.

Looks as if I can't have both, huh? Crispiness and tea flavor at the same time.

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[Chufi]

I made the cookies today, from Jason's recipe.. they were (are!) delicious. I didn't use the chocolate, and even without adding extra sugar I found them still quite sweet.. a little less sugar is more to European taste I guess..

But they are goooood. Thanks for the recipe.