Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Recipe: Green Tea Cookies

I'd been meaning to do this for awhile, make some healthier cookies then my usual chocolate, macadamia nut, dark chip versions. Next up, a vanilla raspberry swirl cookie!


This cookie was inspired by something I tried at an awesome dinner at Watcha and my dining companion raved about it, so of course, I had to try to make it for him. The cookie has green tea and azuki beans which means its...bittersweet! Brilliant!

At the last minute, I swapped out the walnuts (urgh, not my favourite thing in the world) for pine nuts because they're healthier and they look so cute poking their little pointy heads out of the green skin. You can also make these with almonds and mix ground almonds into the flour for a more nutty cookie.

Ingredients:
125g butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
3 teaspoons matcha (green tea) powder
1 tin of azuki beans
A couple handfuls of pine nuts

Tips to the wise, you have to cream the butter and sugar till its light and fluffy. Don't continue if your mixture has curdled or if it isn't light bright white yellow and well-whipped. The cookies just don't taste the same and these don't have the denseness of chocolate to mask the texture (or lack thereof).

Add eggs and stir in sifted flour with baking powder, matcha, azuki (drain the liquid from the beans and discard) and pine nuts or almonds. If you use ground almonds, substitute 1 cup of flour for ground almonds to keep the consistency. If you really want to, you can swirl in a drop of green colouring to make the hue a little more tea-like.

Roll mixture into small balls and flatten slightly. You must be able to roll this mixture, if not your cookies are lacking flour and are going to emerge melted and flat. You can press a flaked almond into the top if you're into that kind of thing. I just like to use Silpat so that they slide off easily and I can throw a new sheet into the oven right away.

Bake at 190C for about 15 minutes, makes 40 small cookies.


This recipe is a cinch, I was done with mixing it up in 15 minutes, which makes it an entirely accessible way to destress And get a yummy product after work. (Or at work?) Enjoy!

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