Green tea shortbread creatures

The only treats I’ve ever baked with green tea were these grapefruit cupcakes with green tea frosting. I’ve really no idea why I haven’t experimented with green tea powder since, but I’m sure glad I tried it again.

I decided to test out this recipe, with the only substitution being that I used regular green tea powder instead of matcha green tea. Matcha can be a bit hard to come by in local shops / is more expensive, but the alternative I used produced very similar results and the flavour is A+.

I’ve only ever attempted shortbread once, and with it being such a miserable fail I hadn’t tried since. This recipe, however, was *super* easy, has only six ingredients, and was easy to roll out and rework.

Next up on the to-try list are these matcha almond linzer cookies with strawberry jam and these matcha mini cakes with black sesame buttercream.

Oatmeal raisin cookies

For some reason I had it in my head that oatmeal raisin cookies were on the slightly more healthy side, at least compared to chocolate chip cookies. That’s not so much the case, but these cookies are still one of my favourites. I haven’t made them in probably two years, and when I realized that I found the opportunity pretty quickly to make them again.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Lots of raisins

Directions:

Mix softened butter and sugars, add egg and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients, then add them to the wet. Add raisins.

Bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes.

These cookies are absolutely delicious and chewy. The best cookies are chewy, I think.

Enjoy!

Recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies

I had posted about cookies before, I didn’t include any recipe for you to follow!! So, since I made these classic cookies (I’m big on the classic recipes lately, eh) I thought I’d post again and include the super simple directions.

This recipe is great because you can swap out / add in any kind of chips / bits / candy / etc. Fancy some M&Ms in there? Mini fudge chocolate chips? Peanut butter chips? Mini eggs…?! Wow. Ok. On to the recipe before I get too carried away…

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbs milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
+ as many chips as you want! (don’t get too carried away – aka use less than a bag)

How it’s done:

Cream the shortening and brown sugar together. Add egg, milk, and vanilla. Mix.
Mix together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then mix it into the first bowl. Stir in the chocolate chips!
Try not to eat too much of the cookie dough.
Bake at 350F for ~ 8 minutes.

TIP: If you like soft cookies, take them out of the oven when the edges get slightly brown. They cook quickly, so keep an eye.

Peanut butter cookies – great for fall or any time, really

For some odd reason I’ve always loved peanut butter cookies, but the same hasn’t been true for peanut butter. Not sure why or how that is, but over the past few years I’ve slowly worked peanut butter into my life. Going back through some of my previous blog posts, I noticed that I’ve actually been incorporating peanut butter into a variety of recipes. You can check out the posts and recipes for: peanut butter cups, peanut butter banana muffins and chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter chips.

Here’s what you’ll need to make classic, delicious peanut butter cookies:
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

To make the cookies, follow these simple directions:
Cream peanut butter and shortening together. Add brown sugar and mix well. Next, add the egg, milk, and vanilla, mixing after each addition. Combine the dry ingredients together and add them to the wet ingredients. Bake 350C for 7-8 minutes.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve always done the squish-the-cookie-with-a-fork technique on my peanut butter cookies (and only on my peanut butter cookies). My mom always used to do that, so it’s pretty much not complete without it. From the picture, it’s obvious that I added an extra something to the cookies. I couldn’t resist adding white chocolate chips, and they actually go really well with the peanut butter.