matcha green tea almond shortbread cookies

Matcha Green Tea Almond Shortbread Cookies

matcha green tea almond shortbread cookies
There was this one time, several years ago, that I went to visit a friend for lunch before she moved across the country. We hung out and then she accompanied me to Chinatown where I think we went in every grocery store in the neighborhood in search of matcha green tea powder. I had seen a recipe for matcha green tea cream cheese frosting and decided I had to try it. That’s when cupcakes were all the rage. (Yeah, I said it: were.) Every employee of every shop we went in looked at me like I was crazy when I described what I was looking for. Finally, I settled on a matcha drink mix. It had some added sugar in it but it was close enough. That frosting was pretty good though…

Ever since I saw the recipe for Matcha Almond Shortbread I’ve been having wild fantasies. They look like the perfect cookie to accompany a cup of tea — green or otherwise. And the addition of the Matcha green tea flavor is a great twist that I was eager to try. And wouldn’t you know it. You can buy matcha powder in your regular grocery store now. It’s not cheap but you don’t need a lot in order to get the benefits.

Luckily I had some self-ground almond meal left over from my Christmas baking that I was able to use for this recipe. In general, the recipe was difficult just because it seems to make a very small amount. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be happier that it doesn’t make three dozen cookies like some recipes. But it was difficult, at times, for my mixer to handle such a small quantity. I was constantly scraping the mixing bowl. Also, I wasn’t able to get the dough to form a ball. It was sticking to itself but also to the sides of the mixing bowl. I let the mixer work it for a while but finally gave up. It was fully combined and I was concerned about over working the dough.

Instead of freezing the dough, per the recipe, I made this into a two day affair: making the dough on one night and baking it the next day. However, I chose not to freeze it as called for; I left the dough log in the fridge overnight. Unlike the Heidesand shortbread cookies I made for the food blogger cookie swap, these were very easy to slice and to slice with an even thickness.

It’s difficult to see in the photo, but there’s definitely a slight green tinge to the dry ingredients that really comes through when it’s mixed with the butter/powdered sugar mix.

The cookies are buttery and you can definitely taste both the almonds and the matcha. They’re good although I’m not sure I think that they’re really anything special. …but you know I’m going to eat them all.

Soundtrack: The Twilight Singers’ “Powder Burns”

An egg yolk.

Matcha Green Tea Almond Shortbread dry ingredients

Matcha Green Tea Almond Shortbread dough

slicing matcha green tea almond shortbread cookies

matcha green tea almond shortbread cookies ready to bake

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