Earl Grey Shortbread

Happy Monday, everyone.Did you all have a great holiday? Hubs had a nice day out in the city on Saturday. Our friends came to visit and they took us to one of the best submarine sandwich shops I’ve ever been to: Submarine Center in the West Portal district of SF. I’m not a big sandwich person and I still loved this place to pieces. The bread they use is delicious–just the right amount of crunch and softness. And the dressing that they slather onto the sandwich is so good. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

After lunch, we attempted to see the brand spankin’ new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, but tickets were completely sold out, so we visited the de Young museum of art instead. It was just ok. After Hubs and I visted the amazing museums in Europe this summer, it was hard to be impressed by our tiny museums in SF. Also, we weren’t willing to pay an extra $20 to see the special Yves Saint Laurent exhibit, although I’m sure it would’ve been interesting.

Today, I’m going to share the delicious recipe for the Earl Grey cookies that I made last week. When high quality tea is used to make these cookies, they are so fragrant, the whole kitchen smells like tea. But, when they are eaten, the tea flavor is mild and the shortbread is rich and buttery. I think these shortbread cookies are simply perfect with a cup of English breakfast tea.Just a warning: the recipe was given to me by my coworker who is a professional pastry chef, so everything is in grams. I don’t know what the conversions are, so it would be best to make these with a food scale. It’s good to have a food scale in the kitchen anyway, since I’ve found than many of the best recipes I find on the internet are all listed in grams.

First, I’ll share with you the mess that was supposed to be a batch of oatmeal cookies with dried cherries and apricots:

I baked two sad trays of these. The second tray dripped batter onto the bottom of our oven that is now charred and stuck. Now, every time I bake something, the smoke alarm goes off.

This is what a raw cookie is supposed to look like. Here are the Earl Grey shortbread cookies before they went into the oven.

Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

• 400g butter (a little less than 4 sticks), room temperature
• 160g powdered sugar, sifted
• 40g egg yolks (a little less than 2 large egg yolks)
• 10g salt
• 450g all purpose flour, sifted
• 2g Earl Grey tea, crushed
• Granulated sugar (for sprinkling)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Sift together flour, salt, and Earl Grey tea and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar just until combined. Do not over cream or the cookies will not have a flakey, shortbread texture.
4. Slowly add in egg yolks, being careful not to over cream.
5. Add in dry ingredients, mixing lightly and only until dry ingredients have been combined. Dough should be a little sticky to the touch, but not super sticky.
6. Take the dough and flatten it between two sheets of parchment paper. This will make rolling the dough out easier. Then, chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
7. Roll out chilled dough into 1/4 inch thickness, being careful not to over handle. Cut shapes using cookie cutters and arrange on a metal sheet lined with parchment paper.
8. Bake for 8-12 minutes, or until edges just turn golden brown.
9. Remove cookies from oven and sprinkle with granulated sugar while hot. The sugar will melt a little bit and stick to the cookies. If available, vanilla infused sugar complements the cookies nicely.
10. Cool cookies on sheet for 10 minutes. Then, remove and cool completely on a wire rack.