Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies

Hello everybody~ Merry christmas! Here's another recipe made from tea! I love this recipe because I LOVE EARL GREY TEA. Okay, I think any food that has earl grey tea in it, I love it. That's it. When I came across this recipe online, I knew I had to bake it.



Recipe adapted from Lydia bakes
(Another reason that made me bake it is because of the gorgeous photos of it on Lydia's site. Hop over to see them!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup Flour
1/3 cup Caster Sugar, plus more for dusting
1/2 tsp Vanilla Paste
1 tbsp Earl Grey Tea Leaves
1 tbsp Finely grated orange zest
150g Unsalted Butter, room temperature

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Sift flour into a bowl and add sugar, vanilla paste, Earl Grey leaves and orange zest and mix in together.

3. Grate the butter into the flour mixture then mix with your hands until mixture resembles large crumbs.

4. Press the mixture together firmly on top of a sheet of baking paper on your bench or work surface.

5. Place another piece of baking paper on top and roll out mixture to about 1 cm thick. (I would suggest that you chill it for awhile so that it will be easier to cut when it is firm)

6. Cut into even sized pieces and carefully place on the baking tray.

7. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly golden.



Once cookies are baked, remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle extra caster sugar on top.
Leave cookies to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before placing on a cooling rack to cool completely.

On Lydia's blog she drizzled the cookies with orange glaze, but in my case I omitted it because I do not want it to be too sweet. Perhaps next time I will try it out with the glaze. It makes the cookies look to enticing! :)

Before I even considered it into my CNY baking list, my mum already instructed me to bake these for Chinese New Year. Alright! Earl grey babies, we'll meet again soon! A month more to Chinese New Year!

Good luck in baking! :)