Venetian Tiramisu Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodles are one of my favorite cookies and they are also a great cookie to infuse tea into! I've experimented before with making Chai Snickerdoodles and they were SO GOOD.

One of the teas I got in my sipsby box this month was a Venetian Tiramisu by Harney & Sons. This blend has a whole lot of goodness in it! The blend combines white tea, hojicha, cocoa, vanilla and brandy flavor. When I read the ingredients, I knew right away this would be a great tea for snickerdodles!

The method I love most for tea infusion in cookies is with the butter. I fee like when the butter is infused, you get the flavor coming through better than if you infuse milk or put the tea straight in the dough. 

When making snickerdoodles or any cookies, I love using an ice cream scoop for size and also so that it makes less of a mess! 

One of the main parts of the snickerdoodle is rolling the dough in cinnamon sugar! 

I also added a tiny bit of nutmeg and ground cloves the cinnamon and sugar because all those flavors pair so wonderfully!

I wanted to show this picture to demonstrate different ways of baking your cookie. Once you have the rolled ball on your cookie sheet, It will have a nice finished look if you flatten them a bit. I did different variations of flattening to see the difference. The top cookie is flattened less than the bottom. The top cookie came out softer than the bottom but the bottom cookie looks a bit prettier because the flattened shape almost looks a bit like a cloud. 

Even though the more flattened cookie came out really pretty (below), I'm not a fan of crunchy cookies! I love soft the best, BUT these cookies were perfect for dunking in my tea which is something I also love to do. 

Shiitake Mate Body Oil

Tea Skin Care!

Hi lovelies! I'm back with another diy beauTEA recipe! I was again looking through my little book of recipes and I noticed one about body oil and wanted to give it a try. At it's core, doing these beauty products are very similar to cooking. I'm looking for a way to infuse tea!

The base oil for this is sweet almond oil...don't panic! I found it at marshalls/tjmaxx and honestly there were so many bottles and I actually saw it in a bunch of other stores so you shouldn't have trouble finding any! The original recipe infuses the almond oil with a bunch of flowers and herbs. I've infused the oil with shiitake mate tea! I'm not a fan of tea bags for drinking and if you're like me I highly suggest using them for cooking and diy recipes like this! The clean up will be much easier and there will be no need for straining!

I've been seeing mushroom teas around for a while and they have many health benefits which I wasn't surprised about but I was surprised about their skin benefits! Shiitake mushroom have anti microbial properties and selenium which can help decrease acne. The zinc content can also help promote better skin healing! 

This is a super easy DIY, especially because the "hardest" part is infusing the oil! I suggest using a double boiler but if you don't have one I think the best thing to use is a heat proof glass bowl that fits on a pot. The most important part of this recipe is to not let the oil burn, which can easily be accomplished by keeping the heat low and checking on it as it infuses!

I additionally added in vitamin E and lavender essential oil which promote better skin health but you are welcome to switch these out for other oils that you prefer! The nice thing about the sweet almond oil is that it has a beautiful fragrance so this body oil doesn't smell like mushrooms, it smells sweet !

Keep in mind that this is not lotion, this is OIL so you don't need to spray a lot of it. You can spray a little bit and it goes a long way! I think this is best to put on before bed or if you want to knead or massage a part of your body part. 

Places like your heels, hands, elbows etc that can easily get dry are perfect target areas for this body oil!