[A green mouse, running through the grass – Snail-like vanilla and green tea sablés]

matcha green tea cookies

I assume you guessed from the lack of content around here that I’ve been somewhat busy. And well, you’re just damn right. I haven’t been cooking – or more accurately baking – much lately.

I sure have been making myself lovely meals: from pink-hello-kitty-bento-packed lunches to warm and comforting dinners. But baking, ahem, not really. Aside from delicious fudgy brownies of which only the scraps were photographed, that is.

But yesterday, as I was redesigning fanny (previously known as je suis une cacahuète), I definitely felt the urge to nibble on something sweet yet delicate. Lindt milk chocolate being anything but delicate, I put my laptop down for the first time in the past couple of hours and headed to the kitchen.

Butter had been let at room temperature all day (I must have subconsciously known I was about to use later in the day). Icing sugar quietly sat on the shelf, along with flour. A dozen of day-fresh eggs were waiting for me in the fridge; next to my preciously kept jar filled with fat vanilla beans. And, almost unnoticed, matcha green tea was at the far end of my beautiful antique wood counter.
It only took me a second before I knew what I was going to make. Kelli’s green tea shortbreads.

I might have only made them once – for the second birthday of foodbeam – but damn, I got hooked. And so did many bloggers. It’s funny because it took me quite some time to get around and make Kelli’s recipe, which got posted on lovescool back in May, last year. But soon after I made them, it reminded all the people who had bookmarked the recipe to actually make it. And well, you know the rest of the story.

matcha green tea cookies

Since then, I made appoint to cook more from other blogs. Quite evidently, this didn’t happen, but well, I am bookmarking like crazy. Just check my tumblr blog and you’ll grasp the full scale of my craziness. Anyway, this time around I didn’t make them plain – oh you had guessed that already? from the pictures? damn, I’m bad at creating the surprise. So well I did experiment, with Sarah’s peppermint cookies well in mind.

Now two things. 1/ Don’t they look super pretty? 2/ French nonpareils don’t taste good.
The sables themselves were absolutely perfect – but that’s totally what you would expect from one of Kelli’s recipe. As for the nonpareils. Well, pretty, but not delicious.

matcha green tea cookies

Sablés escargots à la vanille et au thé vert
Adapted from Kelli’s green tea sweets.

As said above those sablés are really delicious. But if you’re planning on making them, I would suggest leaving out the nonpareils, which – at least in France – don’t taste good. Unless you’re making them for children, but I doubt they would appreciate the green tea flavour; or maybe I’m just wrong and they’d love it – I mean green cookies. Green. Cookies. Yeah!
You could also make the sables plain, by increasing the tea to one and a half tablespoon, instead of the one tablespoon the recipe calls for.

Sablés escargots à la vanille et au thé vert

for approximately thirty sables

60g icing sugar
140g butter, at room temperature
240g flour
3 egg yolks
seeds from one vanilla pod
one tbsp matcha green tea
nonpareils (optional)

Preheat the oven to 170°C, and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
Put the icing sugar and butter into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix until smooth and light in colour. Mix in the vanilla seeds and egg yolks, one at a time until smooth. Add the flour and mix until just combined.
Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Return one of the pieces to the mixer and add the green tea, until the dough has a uniform shade of green.
Roll the two pieces of dough out to half a centimetre thickness, layer the two rectangles and roll into a 5cm-wide log, just like you would with a jelly roll cake. Chill for an hour. Cut the log into 1cm-thick slices and place on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 12 minutes.

pour une trentaine de sablés

60g sucre glace
140g beurre, à temperature ambiante
240g farine
3 jaunes d’oeufs
graine d’une gousse de vanille
une tbsp thé vert matcha
nonpareils (optionels)

Préchauffer le four à 170°C, et recouvrir une plaque à pâtisserie de papier cuisson.
Mettre le sucre glace et le beurre dans un bol et mélanger jusqu’à ce que le mélange soit crémeux. Ajouter les graines de vanille puis les jaunes d’œufs. Enfin, incorporer rapidement la farine.
Diviser la pâte en deux pâtons de même poids. Et mélanger le thé vert dans l’un d’eux.
Etaler les deux pâtons en rectangle de un demi centimètre d’épaisseur et rouler pour former un boudin de 5cm de diamètre.
Mettre au froid pendant une heure puis couper en tranches de 1cm d’épaisseur. Placer sur la plque et cuire pendant 12 minutes.

Posted by fanny who loves biscuits and cookies, green tea, recipe inside, vanilla