Vanilla Rose Pistachio Cookies

Pistachi Rose.

You may have guessed but I LOVE rose in tea. It doesn't matter if it's buds or petals, I love the flavor and aroma that rose gives to a blend. The Vanilla Rose Tea from Zhi tea is no exception. This blend uses assam as the base tea so it gives it that delicious black tea flavor that I love and that is so good in sweets. 

I wanted to make cookies with this blend and I put my thinking cap on to find what would go well with the rose. Ding, ding ding! Pistachio! It may be because norouz (Persian New Year) is so close but rose and pistachio are a match made in heaven. These are two ingredients that were common to everyday life growing up. 

For this recipe I took an each chocolate chip recipe and tweaked it slightly for my purpose. 

What you'll need: 

• 1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar

• 2 eggs

• 3/4 cup - 1 cup slightly crushed pistachios

• 1 cup Vanilla Rose butter

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 2 1/4 cup flour

• Pinch of salt

To make the tea infused butter, you need to melt 1 cup of unsalted butter. Once melted pour 2 - 4 tablespoons of Vanilla Rose tea into the butter. The amount of tea depends on your taste and if you want there to be a hint of flavor or a punch of flavor!  

Let the tea brew for about 5-6 minutes in the butter. Once brewed strain the butter.

Let it sit and harden. 

Your butter should feel like softened butter, you don't want it to be too liquid so make sure you leave time for it to solidify. 

Instructions: 

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Cream the butter and sugar

3. Mix in the eggs

4. Add in the flour, baking soda and salt

5. Gently mix in the pistachios

6. Roll dough into 2 -3 in balls and place on a baking sheet

7. Bake foe 10-12 minutes until slightly golden

8. Remove cookies from oven and transfer gently to a cooling rack

9. Scarf down cookies!

My favorite thing about these cookies is that they aren't as sweet as chocolate chip cookies because of the lack of chocolate chips. The pistachios give you a good crunch to contrast with the soft cookie. These are perfect for tea dunking! 

Matcha White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Matcha-ddicated.

I'm back at it again feeding your matcha addiction with these matcha white chocolate chip cookies! 

As the weather gets cooler, my urge to bake grows. I love to fill the house with warm and yummy smells. Because of it's powder form, matcha has been the easiest tea to bake with so far. It's extremely versatile and can be worked into almost any recipe! Here is the recipe I found. I've pasted it below as well with my personal modifications. 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon green tea powder from The Tea Spot
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 bag white chocolate chips 

Topper made by PaperlyPress

1. Heat oven to 350 and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper
2. Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl (flour, matcha, baking soda and salt)
3. Cream the butter and sugar, feel free to use a hand mixer
4. Add in egg, egg yolk and vanilla
5. Slowly mix dry ingredients into wet mix
6. Fold in white chocolate chips. NOTE: I used a whole bag which made the cookies very sweet. You may want to use less than a bag. 
7. Make balls with 1 tablespoon of batter and place on baking sheet several inches apart
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes, let cool on sheet for 2 minutes then transfer to wire rack

Toppers made by PaperlyPress

These cookies are so simple and aren't dominated by the matcha taste. They turn out a fun greenish tint and the white chocolate chips pair well with the matcha.

Have you ever made a sweet with matcha? What is your fav?!

Chai Tea Shortbread Cookies

Tea is for more than drinking.

Until I get my hands on some matcha I'm going to keep baking cupcakes and cookies with the tea in my collection because the result is oh so good! 

This chai tea from Wight Tea Co has to be one of the best chai teas I've ever had so I thought to myself, this will probably be delicious in cookies!

Artsy Flour Shot

Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter salted
• ⅔ cup brown sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon chai tea crushed up
• 1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
• 1 tablespoon sea salt (optional) 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. This all depends on your oven. Mine is really hot so I have it on 350 but if your oven isn't as strong you could stand to put it up to 375
2. Mix the butter and sugar then add in the vanilla.
3. Separably combine flour and chai tea. Add the dry ingredients to the butter, sugar and vanilla.  
4. Form the dough into a log shape to fit the size you want your cookies to be. Wrap with saran wrap and freeze for 20-40 min.
5. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and cut your cookies to desired thickness. Bake for 11 minutes.

OPTIONAL

1. Melt chocolate chips with a double boiler or a bowl over a pan of boiling water. 
2. Dip cooled cookies in melted chocolate and sprinkle with sea salt

Ceylon Leaf Cookies

Bakinspiration.

Ok, ok.. I know that's not a word but I retrieved a print from Lily & Val! Valerie is an incredible artist and hand draws these images with chalk on a chalk board then digitizes them. I was so excited to get this in the mail. 

Today was really gloomy and this print got here just in time. Life is what you bake it is probably going to be my new life motto!

I decided to take a basic earl grey cookie recipe and use ceylon tea instead.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons grated orange zest
• 2 cups flour
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons crushed ceylon leaves (or tea of your choice)

1. Zest the orange! 
2. Crush the tea leaves!
3. Cream butter with sugar and add orange zest
4. Mix dry ingredients together
5. Gradually add dry ingredients to butter mixture
6. Cut the dough in half and roll into logs on parchment paper 
7. Wrap parchment paper around logs and place in freezer until the logs are firm
8. Cut the logs into slices and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper
9. Bake for 13 -15 minutes or until edges are golden brown

Review: Delicious and buttery. The orange zest is a subtle but great addition to the taste. 

Regrets: I didn't crush the tea leaves as much as I should have 

Miso White Chocolate Chip Cookies - Baking Failure

Sometimes I fail. 

I took an interest in baking back in middle school. At the start, I failed all the time. I soon discovered that baking is a lot like chemistry, you have to be precise. There is a reason to add baking soda versus baking powder or both etc. Once I got the hang of it I usually did well, except last night. EPIC FAIL :)

The last time I remember messing up was making my mom a raspberry torte. It was an extremely complicated recipe and I did not bake the genoise correctly, it was delicious but it was no genoise. 

I had come across A Cozy Kitchen's miso white chocolate chip recipe and was intrigued. Not really a fan of white chocolate but in cookies it's usually YUM. I have also never baked with miso before. The recipe was simple enough but in the process of baking I messed up. 

The bottom of the cookies kept burning. Thankfully the batter was a large batch so that I could experiment. Here is what I tried and what finally worked. 

-First I tried doubling up on the parchment paper...burned bottoms

-I tried lowering the oven temp to 300 from 350 and bake the cookies for 10 minutes instead of 12...burned bottoms

-I kept the above changes and moved the baking rack down a notch. This was the closest I got so far, the bottoms were browned instead of burned but the cookies weren't the right shape. 

-FINALLY, on my last batch I increased the size of the balls I was putting on the sheet and flattened them a bit. I checked them after 8 minutes and left them in for 9 total I believe. They finally came out right, on the last batch :( 

Of course it was frustrating to fail so many times but humbling as well. I took a few pictures to show you the process and difference in cookies!

The ones on the right were still yummy yummy but a bit too browned. 

Lesson learned. 

Walnut Snowballs

Cure those winter blues.

These are my stepdad's favorite cookie so I decided to make a big batch of them for him for Christmas! They are from Special Desserts by Ann Amernick.   

• 1 Cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 1/3 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350. You should line two cookie sheets with parchment paper, I just used a greased sheet which also worked fine. 

Cream the butter and sugar together then stir in the vanilla and walnuts. 

Sift together the baking powder and flower. Add in the dry mixture in thirds mixing with a rubber spatula after each addition. Form small walnut sized balls and bake for 15 minutes. The snowballs should be set but not browned. Let the snowballs cool then cover them in confectioner's sugar. 

Voila!