Matcha Butter Cookies
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If you love matcha, then these Matcha Butter Cookies are for you! These cookies are crisp with a tender crumb and a really distinct matcha flavor. So delicious and easy to make.
Butter cookies are an all-time favorite classic and today I am going to show you how to make Matcha Butter Cookies. These crisp, delicious butter cookies have lots of amazing butter flavor, distinct earthy matcha flavor, and a melt-in-your-mouth consistency. They are light and not sweet that will have you coming back for more.
Choosing the Right Matcha
Some of you may get confused about the difference between green tea and matcha. Don’t confuse matcha with the same green tea that you drink at home or Japanese restaurants. The names are slightly deceptive because green tea and matcha are used interchangeably, but they are actually slightly different. Matcha and green tea both come from the same plant, camellia sinensis, but they are grown and processed differently.
Matcha is made from whole green tea leaves that have been pulverized into a super fine powder. Because the whole leaf is powdered and ingested, instead of just water infused through the tea leaves, matcha has significantly greater substances and deeper flavor than green tea. Moreover, you cannot grind the regular green tea to make matcha, considering matcha is made from shade-grown tea leaves. Processing regular green tea involves the leaves being left in the sun. Comparatively, matcha bushes are specifically kept undercover to increase the chlorophyll and amino acid levels in the leaves. That is why matcha has a much richer flavor than green tea.
Please note that matcha comes in both ceremonial-grade and culinary-grade. Ceremonial-grade matcha is considered higher quality and should be used for drinking. Meanwhile, the culinary-grade powder is intended for baking and cooking purposes.
Baking Tips
- Use room temperature butter. It refers to soft and pliable butter, but still cool to touch. There should be an indent when you press with your finger.
- Measure your flour correctly. Adding too much flour to the recipe is the most common mistake. To best and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale. If you still insist on using volume measurement, make sure to fluff your flour and spoon it into your measuring cup. Then, use a knife to level it off.
- Add more milk if your dough is too hard. Finding the right consistency of cookie dough is very crucial for butter cookies since you need it to be creamy enough to pipe. I find the recipe ratio is perfect for me, but if your dough is too hard to pipe, try to add a teaspoon of milk to the dough.
- Make small cookies rather than large cookies. If you make your swirls smaller or larger, the cookies will need to bake for less or more time.
- Use a cookie press to shape the cookies. If you are not confident about your piping skill, you can alternatively use a cookie press to shape these cookies.
More Cookie Recipes
While you are here, check out also these cookie recipes!
- Pistachio Snowball Cookies
- Famous Amos Style Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Sable Breton Cookies (French Butter Cookies)
- Pandan Gula Melaka Butter Cookies
- Double Chocolate Butter Cookies
- Earl Grey Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (113 gr) unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup (65 gr) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup (125 gr) cake flour
- 1/4 cup (30 gr) cornstarch
- 1 tbsp matcha powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 340F/170°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
- Using a mixer or spatula, mix butter and confectioners sugar until combined. Add egg yolk and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.
- Sift in cake flour, cornstarch, matcha powder, and salt. Mix with a spatula until well incorporated.
- Add your star piping tip to the piping bag. Spoon a little bit of dough into the piping bag and try piping on the prepared baking sheet. If the dough is too thick to pipe, transfer the dough back to the mixing bowl and add 1 tsp of milk. If the dough is creamy enough to pipe, continue piping the dough into swirls, leaving 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. (*see video for a visual guide)
- Bake cookies for 15-17 minutes or until the edges are light brown.
- Remove from the oven and immediately transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Hi I have used plain flour instead of cake flour is that okay? I find I have to have the batter really soft or add 4-5tsp milk to make it easy to pipe, is that normal? Finding it really hard to pipe. But once I do it is very delicious!
Hi Lib,
It is okay to use plain all-purpose flour instead of cake flour. However, I prefer cake flour for butter cookies because the ones made with all-purpose flour tend to be denser and not as tender. It is okay to add milk to make the dough easier to pipe. I guess you need to add more milk into the dough because you use all-purpose flour which has a higher gluten content and absorbs more water than lower-protein flour. The next time you make the recipe, I suggest reducing 1-2 tbsp cornstarch to make the dough a little bit softer. Don’t reduce it too much or the dough will spread more during baking.
Hope you enjoy the cookies!
Ahhh makes sense, I haven’t used cake flour much in UK so will try your suggestions. Thank you! Yes my hubby loves them, so do I, so I really want to perfect them 🙂 thanks so much!
Hi I have tried to reduce the cornflour, do you mean reduce by tbsp or tsp? 30gram isn’t a lot to reduce from… anyways I’ve tried it and yeah it got flat so I guess it spreads like you have pre-warned! Maybe I’ll just stick to same ingredients amount but add more milk? Or reduce plain flour?
Hi Lib,
In my case, I have tried reducing half of the cornstarch for butter cookies and it worked well for me. Buy it turned out the method did not work for you. I think adding more milk is the best solution for you then.