Enjoy your afternoon tea with these crisp and buttery Matcha Cookies. The unique flavor combination of matcha and white chocolate is surprisingly delightful!
I have always had a sweet tooth starting at a young age. As I got older, my taste bud for sweets has evolved and I’ve come to appreciate baked goods and confectionaries that have different tones of flavor and are preferably not overly sweet. When comes to flavoring in the sweet department, my absolute favorite is matcha (green tea powder). The earthy, slightly bitter taste with a sweet hint of vanilla-like aroma of matcha is utterly dreamy and alluring, which makes it a delightful ingredient to work with. It is subtle but unmistakable.
And good news for matcha lovers! You can now find every imaginable snack and sweet available in matcha flavor. Specialty stores, mini markets, and even food courts at the departmental stores in Japan are offering matcha flavored goodies with an astonishing array of selections. Since I’ve been inspired to cook and bake with matcha, I’m excited to share one of my favorite butter cookies, Matcha Cookies (抹茶クッキー) with you today.
What is Matcha?
Before I begin talking about these cookies, let me share a bit of info on Matcha with you.
Matcha is a type of tea leaf powder that has a beautiful vivid green color. However, it’s different from the “green tea” that you drink with Japanese meals. That’s green tea too, but matcha leaves are grown and harvested differently. The leaves are grown under shade.
For those of you who want to try this recipe, I hope you can find 100% pure matcha powder in your local Asian grocery store. The good quality ones should have very beautiful green, not dull green. Japanese grocery stores around my area sell Maeda-En matcha and you can also get it on Amazon. It’s a bit pricey but matcha is expensive in Japan as well.
Adding White Chocolate Chips
These cookies are really delicious even without white chocolate chips (if you’re not a fan of white chocolate). However, I highly recommend it as matcha brings its characteristic bitter flavor to the cookies, and the sweetness from white chocolate chips actually balances out the cookies quite well.
If you add regular chocolate chips, the milk chocolate can be too strong and it ruins the unique matcha flavor and fragrance so I don’t recommend it.
Instead of white chocolate chips, I’ve also tried rolling the chilled cookie logs over white sparkling sugar (large sugar crystals) before slicing the dough. This is a great way to add more sweetness to the cookies. The large sugar crystals will keep their shape and give a nice sweetness and sparkles to the cookies.
I’ve also seen JOC readers adding macadamia nuts instead of white chocolate chips. Great idea!
Buttery and Crispy Texture
This type of cookie is known as butter cookies or icebox cookies. They also go by shortbread cookies or sable cookies. They are unleavened cookies, which means that leavening agents such as baking powder or baking soda are not used in the recipe.
The ingredients are simple: butter, sugar, and flour. They often include vanilla extract, but I omit it because it’s too strong for matcha flavor.
These cookies are crisp rather than chewy or soft. If you have tried and love shortbread cookies, you can expect a similar crispy texture.
Don’t Skip Chilling the Dough!
Chilling the dough intensifies the flavor of the dough and retains its shape in the oven (so the butter in the dough doesn’t melt fast). Hold tight for just 2 hours. You can clean up the kitchen and preheat the oven during this time.
If you like to cut out the cookie dough, roll the dough into a large disk, chill, then roll it out again before cutting it out into shapes.
I hope you enjoy making this Matcha Cookie recipe. They are perfect for a cozy afternoon snack or for your cookie swap during the holiday season!
More Cookie Recipes
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Matcha Cookies
Video
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (plain flour) (weigh your flour or use the “fluff and sprinkle“ method and level it off)
- 2½ Tbsp matcha green tea powder (1 Tbsp matcha is 6 g)
- ¾ cup unsalted butter (softened, at room temperature)
- 1 pinch Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 130 g confectioners’ sugar (1 cup + 2 tsp)
- 2 large egg yolks (at room temperature)
- ¼ cup good-quality white chocolate baking chips
Instructions
Before You Start…
- Please note that this recipe requires a chilling time of 2 hours. Gather all the ingredients. I highly encourage you to weigh your ingredients using a kitchen scale for this recipe. Click on the “Metric“ button at the top of the recipe to convert the ingredient measurements to metric. If you‘re using a cup measurement, please follow the “fluff and sprinkle“ method: Fluff your flour with a spoon, sprinkle the flour into your measuring cup, and level it off. Otherwise, you may scoop more flour than you need.
To Make and Chill the Dough
- Combine 2 cups all-purpose flour (plain flour) and 2½ Tbsp matcha green tea powder in a large bowl.
- Sift the flour and the matcha powder.
- In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat ¾ cup unsalted butter until smooth and creamy. Tip: It’s important to soften the butter ahead of time. Leave the butter out on the counter for 1 hour or microwave it in 5-second increments until it‘s softened.
- Add 1 pinch Diamond Crystal kosher salt and blend.
- Add 130 g confectioners’ sugar (1 cup + 2 tsp) and beat well until soft and light. As you blend, stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl occasionally.
- Add 2 large egg yolks and mix well until combined.
- Gradually add the flour and matcha mixture and mix until just combined.
- Add ¼ cup good-quality white chocolate baking chips and mix until just incorporated.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a cylinder about 1½ inches (4 cm) in diameter and 7 inches (18 cm) long.
- Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator until firm, at least 2 hours. Tip: You can place the logs on a bed of uncooked rice while chilling. It’ll keep the dough in a nice cylindrical shape so your cookie slices won’t be flat on one side. To Freeze for Later: You can also freeze the unbaked logs of dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to 2 months. To bake, let sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before cutting and baking. Do not let the dough fully defrost.
To Bake
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC). For a convection oven, reduce the cooking temperature by 25ºF (15ºC). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking liner. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and unwrap the plastic wrap. Use a sharp knife to slice the dough into rounds about ⅓ inch (7 mm) thick. If the dough is too hard to slice, wait 5 minutes or so before slicing. Place the sliced dough on the baking sheet, leaving about 1 inch (2.5 cm) of space between the rounds.
- Bake the cookies at 350ºF (175ºC) for about 15 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies start to get slightly golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes; then carefully transfer the cookies to a wire cooling rack and let them cool completely before serving.
To Store
- You can keep the cooled cookies in an airtight container and store them at room temperature for at least 4 days.
Notes
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: The post was originally published on November 11, 2011. Since then the post has been updated with a new video, new pictures, and an updated recipe in July 2016.
These are the best cookies, even my kids love them! Though, one time I used margarine since that’s all I had on hand and they didn’t turn out quite as good haha!
Hi Rebecca! We are so happy to hear your kids love this Matcha cookie!
Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your experience with us.
These are my favourite cookies I’ve ever made. I always substitute the chocolate chips for cashew nuts and they turn out so good. Made these as a gift a few times and people always find them amazing. Very glad for this recipe! 🙂
Hi Emma! Wow! Your cookies look so delicious!
Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your baking experience and photo with us!
Very good and original recipe. I will make these again (after I try the marbled matcha pound cake).
Hi Michael! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipes!
We are so happy to hear you enjoyed it!🙂
I over baked them and they are still delicious! Great with coffee or milk.
Hi Ian! Thank you very much for sharing your cookie photo! It looks great! 🤩
We are so happy to hear it tuned out delicious! Happy Baking!💞
Ok, I am so hooked on JOC and REALLY enjoying cooking all her recipes. I love Matcha and love these cookies. Since I don’t really care for white chocolate, I used the recommended alternate method to roll the dough/log over sugar (I used regular glanulated sugar) and they came out really well! I also mixed in sliced almond for the look and that worked quite well.
Hi Izumi! Awesome! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s cookie recipes and sharing your baking experience with us.
We are so happy to hear you love Nami’s recipes! Happy Baking!
Thank you for this perfect recipe! I made it once and have been making 3x batches everytime now and it’s still not enough. Even the local tea shop owner and his family love these cookies. The only bit I’ve “changed” is I use matcha paste instead of because the flavour and color stays more vibrant after baking. This recipe really highlights the natural flavours of matcha so I really recommend using the best quality matcha for baking you can get your hands on.
Hi Christina! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback!
We are so happy to hear everyone enjoy Matcha Green Tea Cookies! Yes! The quality of Matcha makes a huge difference!😉
Great recipe! The cookies have the perfect amount of sweetness and the perfect texture. I can’t stop eating them.
Hi Hope! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback!
We are so happy to hear you enjoyed the Matcha Green Tea Cookies!
Delicious!! I made this as a gift for a matcha lover friend. I omitted the white chocolate chips and I rolled the edges in black sesame seeds. Beautiful and deliciously smooth!
Hi Carla! Awesome! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your cooking experience with us! ☺️
Hi Nami. I made these yesterday and they were amazing! It was a hit with my family and my partner’s. I hope to make them but substitute matcha with hojicha powder, and use dark chocolate chips. Would you recommended adjusting the sweetness (sugar amount), as I think hojicha is not as bitter as matcha?
Hi Barbara, Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post and trying her recipe!
We have never tried this recipe with Hojicha and dark chocolate chip and are unsure how much sugar will be the best.
Hojicha has a different bitterness taste, and dark chocolate is also distinct sweetness. How about try the same amount first and see how it goes?
I made this and my dough was super wet and runny and couldnt possibly be formed into anything
Hi Stacey! We are sorry to hear that your dough was super wet.
If you measure all the ingredients correctly and still the dough was wet, we think the butter was too soft when mixing. Instead of forming the shape of the cylinder, we recommend placing the dough in the bowl and chill in the refrigerator until it gets more manageable.
We hope this helps, and you will give it a try again.
Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your cooking experience with us. 🙂
Would this recipe work with Dutch-processed cocoa, just substitute it for the matcha powder, same quantity?
And maybe 1 tsp vanilla extract?
Hi Brian, Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post!
We have not tried this recipe with Dutch-processed cocoa before and are unsure how the outcome will be.
You might need to add more cocoa powder so that you can taste more cocoa? You can replace some of the flour amounts with Dutch-processed cocoa and see how it goes.
As for the vanilla extract, 1 tsp should be good.🙂
Dough was pretty crumbly so I added an extra egg yolk and more butter! Turned out amazing!
Hi Ella! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
We are glad to hear it turned out well.🙂
Hi Nami, I am just wondering… Do you measure the confectioner’s sugar the same way you do the all-purpose flour?
Also, does the parchment paper need a thin coating of Pam, light spray?
Hi Brian! Parchment paper is nonstick, and for this recipe, you don’t need to grease it.
We hope this helps!
Hi Brian! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
Yes, you can measure it the same way as the flour. However, dessert recipe like this, we strongly recommend using a scale and refer to the Metric system to be accurate. You can click the “Metric” at the beginning of the ingredient list.
We hope this helps!
These are my daughters favorite cookies. Made them so many times for her. Be careful. Website is converting to US measurements. I figured I would try not noticing it was the website, not our amazing artist who created the recipe. The butter measurement is wrong. I have always stuck with the metric in the past and will again. She gives us a conversion below. Use that not the website. There is a tab to change back to metric. That is better
Hi Jyll, Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your feedback!
Yes. Our website shows “US customary measurement,” which 1 cup is 236.6 ml, and it’s not the Metric cup (1 cup = 250 ml), so recipes like this would be easier to use a Metric system and weigh each ingredient. Thank you for sharing your cooking experience!🙂
Hi Nami, these cookies looks great! I also have houjicha powder in my pantry. Would I be able to substitute the matcha for houjicha at a 1:1 ratio? Thanks for your help
Hi Sak! Thank you very much for reading Nami’s post!
Yes. You can substitute the Matcha with Hojicha powder. Please feel free to adjust the sweetness for your liking if it needs.😉