Matcha is a powdered Japanese green tea made from very young leaves. This gives it a very vivid green color and clean taste. When combined with butter, matcha makes a savory buttery cookie with a hint of bitterness yet very flavorful.
The Japanese have a wonderful recipe exchange website called Cookpad, that my Japanese girlfriend turned me on to. I believe this is the largest source of Japanese recipes but obviously it’s in Japanese and they use the metric system. Other than that, it’s great! Okay, joking aside, there are some really good recipes that have been tried, tested and rated by the average everyday cook, not the professional cook. I find these recipes to be simple and user friendly.
My girlfriend, Fumiko, found this matcha cookie recipe on Cookpad. Hence, all the ingredients are given in metric. I have no problem with metric as I do have a scale. These cookies were very buttery and tasty, but we had a little trouble with the oven temperature. So, I tried it again and converted it to what we’re more accustomed to, the English or Imperial system using cups and tablespoons.
Not only tasty, the bright green matcha has many health benefits. It’s loaded with anti-oxidants, as well as high contents of vitamin C, A and Potassium. How’s that for a healthy treat! Just note that matcha can be a bit pricey. Unfortunately, you really can’t substitute other teas because they taste completely different and are not ground into a powder like matcha. In the market, you can find cooking matcha as well as drinking matcha and quality can vary quite a bit. Also, we found that some of the cheaper matcha used for cooking purposes were duller in color. It wasn’t a vibrant green, it was a little muted. This will reflect in the final color of your cookies.
Why not try the matcha cookie during this holiday season. You can even add a little red, by adding red candy, or sugar to make it very festive. It will be a great addition to your Christmas dessert table with it’s bright green color and unique taste!
- Japanese version
- butter 100g
- sugar 60g
- one egg yolk
- flour 140g
- matcha 10g
- Converted version
- 1 stick butter - room temperature soft
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1¼ cup flour - don't pack it too hard.
- 1½ tablespoon matcha
- In a bowl blend flour and matcha, leave aside
- In a separate bowl, blend butter and sugar until white
- add egg yolk to butter and sugar
- add ½ of the dry flour blend to the butter/sugar/egg mix, gently folding it in.
- then and the remainder until well blended. Don't over mix.
- place it on saran wrap and roll it into a log
- let rest in refrigerator for 30 minutes
- to Bake
- Preheat oven to 325 F
- place parchment paper on cookie sheet. Remove chilled log from refrigerator.
- slice cookies and place on cookie sheet. They don't need to be too far apart as they don't expand much.
- bake for 20 minutes.
