#34 - Earl Grey Cookies

If you are one who adore hard, crunchy cookies or if you prefer cookies that are stronger and sweeter in their taste, this recipe is not for you. This recipe yields the perfect soft-baked yet crumbly cookies. In terms of flavour, it is not strong and not so sweet at all. It is very light in terms of taste and it simply melts in your mouth. 

Earl Grey tea has always been one of my favourite tea and I am constantly thinking of ways to incorporate it into my baking. I absolutely adore this recipe because of the use of real tea leaves in the dough which I felt gave the cookies a delicate and fragrant flavour to it.

For me, I like to enjoy these cookies over a cup of Earl Grey Tea and the combination is just perfect. The tea will bring out every flavour there is in the cookies. This is just the perfect melt-in-your-mouth cookie to go for for an afternoon tea party.

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from here

Servings

Make approximately 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

200 grams All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

250 grams Unsalted Butter, softened

80 grams Castor Sugar

40 grams Brown Sugar

1 Egg

2 tbsp Milk

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 tbsp Lemon Juice

7 grams Earl Grey Tea Leaves, cut finely

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Prepare 2 baking sheets, lined with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

3. Sift and combine all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). 

4. In a mixer bowl, cream together butter with both sugars until creamy and fluffy.

5. Add in egg, vanilla extract and lemon juice gradually and beat until smooth. 

6. Combine dry ingredients in Step (3) to the wet ingredients in Step (5), one third portion at a time and mix well.

7. Add in tea leaves to the batter. Mix well until a soft dough is achieved. Ensure that all the ingredients are well-incorporated.

8. Using a small ice-cream scoop, scope and divide the dough into small portions (ball-shaped). Place them on the baking sheets. Ensure that they are at least 3 cm apart from one another. 

9. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to turn light golden brown.

10. After removing cookies from oven, allows the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

(My hubby prefers cookies that are hard and crunchier in texture. Hence, I baked some of the cookies for an extra 3 minutes to achieve such a texture. Note that the colour of these cookies will be much darker.)