I participated in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap this year. It was a fun project. Each participant was given three bloggers to send a dozen cookies to, and three different bloggers also sent them cookies. It was top secret Santa stuff.
Since all the participants are food bloggers, I wanted to do something a little different. I ended out making Green Tea Swirl Cookies using matcha (high grade powdered green tea) to both flavor and color the cookies. Granted the green was not quite a standard Christmas green, more like avocado, but they were green without using fake dye and had a little green tea flavor. I vacuum packed the cookies cookies for shipment,stuffed in some red packing shreds and included a glittery holiday card, then they were on their way.
I received some great cookies from my Secret Cookie Santas. Esme from Chocolate & Croissants sent what I believe were Ginger Snaps. My fussy little daughter loved these, and kept bringing me the box, for another. Kristin of Per L’Amore Di Cibo made some scrumptious chocolate chunk cookies, I couldn’t quite tell if the dough was chocolate or mocha. They met their demise from my friend Chuck, who finished off the bag (he is fussy about sweets, so that’s pretty impressive). The final cookies to be delivered were “Grandma’s No Bake Snowball Cookies”, from Kristin of Kristin Pot Pie. These were yummy balls of mini marshmallows bound together by a tasty chocolate concoction and rolled in coconut. I had a few too many of these, and unlike the others no one was around to pawn the calories off on when they arrived…lol.
Well, without further ado, here is my little contribution to the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap body of knowledge, Green Tea Swirl Cookies.
- 1 cup butter (softened)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 3 cups flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp Kosher salt
- 1½ tbs matcha powder
- Cream together the butter and sugar in large mixing bowl.
- Add vanilla & eggs.
- Add the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix well.
- Take out about half the dough, ball it up. wrap in plastic wrap and put aside.
- Add the matcha powder to dough remaining in bowl, and mix until color is thoroughly blended.
- Ball this dough up, and wrap, as well. Refrigerate the dough for about 15-20 minutes, just enough to stiffen it a little.
- Divide each ball in half then roll out into long rectangle. Tuck edges in as they crack, helping the dough to obtaining a relatively uniform shape.
- Lay one white over one green and vice versa.
- Trim off edges. And gently roll like a cigar (plastic wrap can be helpful in doing this). You will end out with two long dough logs.
- Place the dough logs in refrigerator for at least an hour.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Take out the dough, and slice off ¼ inch cookies. Place the cookies on parchment lined baking sheets.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes. Pay close attention after about 10 minutes, we don’t want these cookies to brown at all on tops.
- Place cookies on racks.to cool.
Many thanks to Julie of The Little Kitchen and Lindsay of Love & Olive Oil for all their hard work putting this together.
I”ve never used Matcha powder. These look really good and pretty too!
Those are GORGEOUS! Wow — and I love the unexpected tea element. Wish you’d had my name!
… see now I thought the cereal you put in your cookies was an unexpected element
They look so pretty! I am going to make these for the party I’m going to next weekend.
Oh oh I want to make these!
I really liked these cookies!! Thank you for sending them to me for the Blogger Cookie Exchange 2012.
Kathleen
I’m glad you liked them, I was a little concerned they might be a little odd for some people.
These really look fantastic!!
Those cookies look extremely yummy. I wish I could eat one right now LOL!
I love Matcha powder! I make homemade chocolate pudding using it.
These cookies not only sound good, but look so pretty!
Hmmm… green tea and chocolate, now you have me thinking.
Thanks, Robin! I really enjoyed these.
I love swirl cookies. I will be making these this week. So pretty and a lovely shade of green.
I would love to try Matcha Powder, especially with how gorgeous you’ve made these cookies look!
I never heard of green tea cookies, but they sound really good!
These are beautiful. I might make some!
These look amazing!
LOVE it! Green is my favorite color and those are beautiful.
I LOVE the way these look. I want to try them!
So pretty and seriously what an awesome idea.
These are so cute !
I love them! Now I wonder if I can make them… I am going to have to try.
Wow, Robin, beautiful cookies!!! I’m so glad you joined in this year and wow to vacuum sealing the cookies…so smart!!
Your cookies look amazing! I wish I had a food sealer like that, I just put mine in ziplocks inside goodie bags!
Beautiful! I’ve been looking for a way to use some of the matcha I brought back from a trip to Japan, and this sounds perfect. ^_^
Those are so cool looking and I bet they are delicious!
Oh, those cookies look so good!
Oh my word. Your cookies look amazing.
Those are so pretty and festive. I bet they taste great too!