Cookies my Way!

Who doesn't love cookies, right? There is a bakery at a nearby mall that sells amazing cookies; my husband and I especially love their coconut cookies. One thing I love about baking cookies is that I can personalize them to suit our palates (or to make use of some ingredients that have been sitting in my cabinet for ages).

I have of course tried the usual oatmeal, chocolate chip and even coffee flavored cookies. So I wanted to do something different this time around. The two ingredients that popped into my head instantly were green tea and dry ginger coffee (chukku kaapi). The green tea gets used regularly, but the coffee has been hidden in the back for a long time. So I took the recipe for a basic sugar cookie and flavored it with these two powders. The result: absolutely delicious cookies for our evening snack!

Ingredients (made 14 cookies)

All purpose flour – ¾ cup

Butter – 3 tbsps (at room temperature)

Sugar – ¼ cup

Salt – a pinch

Green tea powder – 1-1 ½ tbsps (Contents of two tea bags)

Dry ginger coffee powder – 1-1 ½ tbsps (I used Double Horse Brand)

Honey (optional)

Method

Combine the flour and salt and keep aside. In a separate bowl, beat the butter with a whisk/electric beater until smooth. The original recipe called for 4 tablespoons of butter, I skimped on it a bit and used 3…you won't miss the left out butter. Slowly add the sugar and whisk again until smooth and creamy. Now add the flour mixture and incorporate to make a soft dough. If mixing in a wide mouthed vessel, knead the dough in the vessel itself, if not remove on to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Now divide the dough into two, mix the green tea to one half and the ginger coffee to the other. Knead again, cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours. The original recipe required 2 hours of refrigeration, but I found that the dough was extremely hard and could not be rolled out. I had to warm it a bit in the microwave before working it into small cookies. Preheat the oven to 400^oF. Once the dough has chilled for a while, take it out, roll into balls and pat into discs( they will expand a bit). Alternately, you can roll out the dough into a sheet of ¼ inch thickness and cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters. I added a drop of honey on my green tea cookies, because honey adds a nice flavor to green tea.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, remove and allow it to cool before storing in an airtight container.

Now that you have cookies flavored with ginger coffee and green tea, make yourself a cup of regular tea or coffee, sit back and relax! Bon Appétit.

Notes

I added the honey not only for the flavor but also thinking that the cookies will get a nice glaze. Didn't work out though! Maybe I should have diluted the honey and brushed it on the cookies.

I liked the texture of the green tea, being slightly coarse with bits of leaves visible through the cookie. You can of course make a fine powder if you want to avoid the specks.