Most of us at two leaves and a bud love cooking and all of us love eating. And since we also love tea, we're blending these passions and sharing them with you in the form of a monthly blog post featuring a recipe that uses two leaves and a bud tea as an ingredient. Last month, we cooked pork with Mountain High Chai. This month, it's cookies with Earl Grey.
It was recently my turn to bring a dessert to book club, so I tested this recipe out on my friends. There were no complaints (that would be very unlike my book club!), but the consensus was that the cookies were tasty with a subtle, but pleasant tea flavor. These cookies would also be perfect for a tea party and would make a lovely holiday cookie.
I found the recipe on a wonderful blog called I'll Have What She's Having by a Montrealer named Lynn. Turns out she found the recipe from none other than Martha Stewart. I took Lynn's advice and tried cutting the amount of orange zest called for in half so as not to overpower the tea.
Two leaves CEO Richard Rosenfeld also found the tea flavor in the cookies to be subtle. His recommendation for those of you that can plan in advance: let the tea "steep" in the (dry) sugar first. Put the sugar and tea in a jar together for a few days and see if the sugar absorbs some of the Earl Grey flavors. Maybe leave the sachets intact in the jar, so that you can separate them before you begin baking. If you give this a try, please let us know how it goes! Another tip: grind the tea with your fingers while it's still in the sachet and sleeve if you don't have an electric coffee grinder or food processor.
Happy baking! And please offer your reviews and share your tea recipes with us. We'd love to hear from you.
Earl Grey Tea Cookies (Makes about 60 cookies)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp finely ground Earl Grey (from about 6-7 two leaves sachets) Tea can be ground in a spice grinder or mini food processor.
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest (optional)
In a small bowl mix the flour, tea, and salt together. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the butter, powdered sugar, and orange zest together with an electric mixer until the butter is light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add the flour, mixing until well combined.
Split the dough in half and create two round logs, 1 1/4 inches in diameter, wrap them with parchment paper and refrigerate for 1 hour. To keep the bottoms of the logs from flattening out you can slide the logs into paper towel tubes before refrigerating.
Preheat the oven to 350. Line two cookie sheets with parchment set aside.
Cut the logs into 1/4 inch slices, place the slices on the baking sheets about 1 inch apart. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes until the bottoms are just golden. Let the cookies cool on a wire rack before serving.
