Honey Green Tea Spritz Cookies

OMG, you guys, these cookies are AMAZING, tiny, buttery, slightly sweet, matcha scented gems. Plus I got to use my cookie gun. Yeah, you heard me: cookie gun. Well, technically it’s called a cookie press, but look at it!

Kuhn Rikon Cookie Press

Yeah, that’s a cookie gun.

For these cookies I was inspired by Food Network‘s Honey Spritz Cookies, found via The Foodie’s Kitchen; but those cookies sounded too wintery so I had to change them without trying the originals or having used a cookie press in probably 15 years. I’m living on the edge here. The edge of DELICIOUS!

Honey Green Tea Spritz Cookies

Honey Green Tea Spritz Cookies

• 2 c minus 2 tsp all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp matcha (potent green tea powder)
• 1 stick (8 Tbl) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 c white sugar
• 1 egg (large)
• 1/4 c honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F after putting the racks in the 1/3 and 2/3 position. Move two clean, unlined baking sheets away from the oven to keep them cool.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and matcha in a medium bowl and whisk to combine.
3. In your mixer bowl, beat the room temperature butter with the sugar. Beat the butter and sugar on medium high, stopping every few minutes to scrape the bowl down. In about 5 minutes you should have fluffy, glossy, creamed butter.
4. Use cooking spray to lube a measuring cup and measure out your honey.
5. Add the honey, egg, and vanilla extract to the creamed butter. Mix to combine, stopping to scrape the bowl down every minute or so.
6. Following the directions that came with your cookie press, fill the chamber about 3/4 full of dough (I make small blobs and shove them in and then keep packing them in until it looks full). *
7. Press out your cookies! Fill two whole trays. **
8. Bake for 5 minutes, rotate the pans front to back and top to bottom (unless you’re cooking in a convection oven, then just subtract a minute), and then bake another 6 minutes for 11 minutes total. ***
9. Let cool for 1-2 minutes before moving to wire cooling racks to cool completely.

* It will take 2-3 loads of cookie press to shape all the cookies. There will be a bit of ugly, raw dough at the end that you can’t shape., just eat it because you know you want to!

** The first few might come out ugly, that’s OK, pull them off the try and you can re-stuff them into the press later.

*** I baked mine for 6 minutes and 6 minutes and they came out a bit browner on the edges than I’d have liked. If your third tray is going in the oven solo, just use the top rack and bake for 11 minutes.

Nutritional Info: 1 Weight Watchers PointsPlus point per cookie/1 Tbl of raw dough (every nibble counts!)

raw cookies

baked cookies

PS- Does anyone know how to get my baking sheets CLEAN again? Bon Ami and elbow grease hardly make a dent in the baked on brown spots!

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Carrot (Bran) Muffins

Despite having 2 cups of crush bran cereal, these have just a hint of bran to them; the molasses, brown sugar, and cinnamon add enough spice to hide it. And the apple sauce and carrots make these a deliciously moist breakfast treat. Good “first time” muffins too, because they don’t tunnel (over stir) easily.

3 c AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking power
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbl cinnamon
2 c crumbled bran cereal flakes
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 c applesauce
1 c oil
1 1/4 c firmly packed brown sugar
3 c finely grated carrots (4 carrots, grated with a coarse microplane grater is perfect)
1 c currants

Heat oven to 350 F. Lube muffin tins or line them with paper.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon together. Add crushed bran flakes.

In another large bowl (I used an 8 c measuring cup) combine beaten eggs, apple sauce, oil and brown sugar. Stir in carrots and currants.

Pour egg mixture over flour mixture and combine until just barely moist through the flour. There will still be some floury bran flakes, don’t worry about them.

Makes 24 normal size muffins.

Bake for 20 minutes, rotate tins in the oven 1/2 way through (just like tires!).

adapted from Muffins: Sweet & Savory Comfort Food

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Raw Cookie Dough That’s Safe to Eat

 

 

 

 

 

This idea was so good that I have to share it: Cookie Dough That’s Safe to Eat ~ Cupcake Project. Why didn’t I think of it myself? Just leave the eggs out, right?

 

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baking madness

I’ve been baking a lot this past week and did 2 really awesome things:

1. I finally typed up my challah recipe, which can be found here
2. I made a coconut cake

Yeah, a coconut cake. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t take any photos and that it was made from a box mix, but it didn’t taste like a box mix at all!

Here’s what I did: one box of Moist Deluxe White Cake Mix, 3 eggs, one can of regular coconut milk (14.5 oz), 2 Tbl AP flour. Combine following the directions on the box (beat on low for 30 seconds and then medium for 2 miniutes). Bake as directed in two 8″ pans (greased, with parchment and greased again). Cool completely and level off the domes with a bread knife.

Place the bottom cake on your cake plate, cut side up, and spread lemon curd (3-5 Tbls thinned slightly with water and warmed in a coffee mug in the microwave) over the entire top. Invert second cake on top (so cut sides are together).

Frost with butter cream spiked with a heaping blob (2 Tbls) of lemon curd. Coat cake in toasted sweetened coconut (aprox 1 c total).

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