Matcha Sugar Cookies with Black Sesame
These elegant-looking green tea cookies bring fantastic and unexpected flavors to the dessert table. They are just sweet enough, without being too much. If you need an impressive dessert in a pinch, this quick recipe can't be beat; you can even drizzle on the white chocolate to save time or feel free to omit it altogether (the tea cookies are delicious on their own).
Yield: 2 Dozen Cookies
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ cup butter softened (or your favorite butter substitute)
- 1 TBS matcha powder
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg, lightly whisked (or your favorite egg substitute)
- ¾ cup semi-sweet white chocolate chips
- 2 TBS black sesame seeds
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium-sized prep bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking soda, and whisk until combined. Set aside.
In a stand mixer on medium speed, beat together butter and matcha powder until uniformly blended and smooth. Add the sugar and continue to beat until smooth. Finally, add vanilla and egg and beat to incorporate. Add the flour mixture, and beat together until just combined.
Scoop rounded tablespoons of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet, giving each cookie plenty of room to spread. Bake for about 7 minutes, or until the edges are just beginning to brown. Remove from oven and set on a cooling rack, and allow to fully cool.
Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate chips. If you have a microwave, the easiest way to do this is to place the white chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl, and heat at 50% power, stopping to stir every 30 seconds, until the chips are fully melted. If you do not use a microwave, you can very carefully set the bowl of chocolate chips over a pot of just simmering water on the stovetop, stirring constantly and making sure that no moisture gets into the bowl and that the water underneath does not come up to a boil. White chocolate is temperature-sensitive and a bit picky!
When the chocolate has melted, dip each cookie halfway into the chocolate and place on cooling rack. Before the chocolate has time to cool and set, sprinkle each cookie with a small pinch of black sesame seeds.