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) (please weigh your flour; click the Metric button for weights; or learn how to measure flour with a measuring cup)
- 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; click the “Metric“ button above to convert the measurements to metric. If you‘re using a cup measurement, please follow the method in my post How to Measure Flour: 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 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 cold butter out on the counter for 1 hour or microwave it in 5-second increments until 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. Do not overmix.
- Add ¼ cup good-quality white chocolate baking chips and mix until just incorporated.
To Chill the Dough
- 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 the frozen log sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before slicing and baking. Do not let the dough fully defrost.
To Slice and 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 about 5 minutes 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 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.
I admittedly made these without the white chocolate, so just as a plan sable-style cookie/biscuit. They were just lovely, excellent with a cup of tea or coffee in the afternoon.
Hi somebodycooking, Thank you so much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your baking experience with us.
We are so happy to hear that you enjoyed the cookie! Happy Baking!
Hi – are you absolutely sure that this recipe calls for 3/4 cup of butter? It looks like 3/4 stick, or 6 tablespoon from the pictures above, as well as from the video. 3/4 cup would be 1.5 sticks, which would be much more visually. 1 stick is 1/2 cup. Thank you!
Hi Jing! Yes, please check out the ingredient image in step 1 as well as step 3 in the mixer bowl picture. You can see it’s 1.5 sticks, or 3/4 cup. Hope you enjoy the recipe!
Hi ! I really love your recipe !!! I’ve done it a couple time and it’s always perfect ! I was about to make a batch and realized i only have 1 egg, do you think i could just divide the recipe by half and it would work ? Thanks again !
Hi, Adreykha. Thank you for experimenting with Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback.
With only one egg york, the texture will be drier, so we recommend adding more butter to compensate.
We hope this helps!
Yes just divide the whole recipe by half, you will get the same result
Hi Nami,
I just made this recipe and followed it to a T. Weighed everything and all.. but my cookies didn’t come out buttery at all. Do you have any insight on why that may be? Possibly I didn’t beat the butter for long enough? Thanks!
Hi Carmen, Thank you so much for trying Nami’s recipe!
It’s possible that it was the butter you used. Different brands of butter have slightly different flavors and fat contents.
We hope this helps you on your next attempt.
I tried this recipe today, and it was delicious! Had to press the dough quite firmly so it wouldn’t be super crumbly, but it’s such a fast and easy recipe and the cookies turned out perfect, so buttery and crunchy, just how I like them!
Hi Rashmi! Thank you so much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback!
We are so happy to hear that you enjoyed the texture and flavor of Matcha Cookies! Happy Baking!
I have tried this recipe a couple times but each time the dough is very crumbly and hard to form into logs. Is this a common issue/is there anything I can do to fix this? Thank you!
Hello, Ty Mo. Thank you for experimenting with Nami’s recipe!
Usually, this cookie dough comes together quickly. We recommend double-checking the ingredient amounts. It could be that you used a smaller egg york or a different type of sugar.
We hope this was helpful!
Thank you for sharing such a delicious recipe! I made these for an office party and they were a hit! People even took some home for later. Very easy to make – I made the dough the night before and baked the next day (I had a LOT of cookies to make 🙂 ) and they came out perfect.
Hi Chris! Aww. We are so happy to hear everyone enjoyed Matcha Cookies.
Thank you so much for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your baking experience.😊
How long are you able to keep the dough in the fridge?
Hi Alex, Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe!
You can keep it for a day, but to maintain the freshness of Matcha, we recommend freezing it if you know you are not baking it on the same day.
We hope this helps!
Can I cut these out into tree shapes or would that change how they bake?
Hi Jay! Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe!
The baking time may need to be adjusted depending on the thickness and size, but this should not be a big problem.
We hope this helps!
Can the finished cookies be baked and then frozen? I’m assembling cookie boxes to mail to friends and I like to make everything ahead of time so I can assemble close to mailing date for freshness.
Hi Oliver! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
Instead of baking and freezing the cookie, wrap the unbaked cookie dough logs in plastic wrap and freeze them, then bake them before mailing is the best way.
We hope this helps!
if you used brown butter would that flavor overpower the matcha?
Hi mak, Thank you for reading Nami’s post and experimenting with her recipe!
We’ve never used brown butter in this recipe before and are unsure how it will turn out.
If you give it a try, please let us know how it goes!
As an American who struggles with the metric system, I finally gave in and got myself a food scale. Boy does it make a difference.
This was my first recipe using the metric system and my handy dandy food scale and it was delightful! Just the right amount of matcha flavor and the sweetness. The texture is very similar to a shortbread cookie. Loved it and will make again!
Hi Luima! Aww. 🥰 We are so happy to hear you got a food scale! Yes!!! It makes it so much easier with a simple, inexpensive tool.
It allows us to make delicious baked goods every time. Nothing can go wrong!
Thank you for trying this recipe and sharing your experience with us.
Happy Baking! 💞
Hi! May I know would there be much difference if I leave out the yolks? I hate to have balance of whites or other ingredients lol.
Hi S L, Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe!
The egg yolk works like a binding agent, and we recommend using it. Without the egg yolks, the cookie will be very dense.
How about making coconut macaroons with leftover egg whites?
https://www.justonecookbook.com/coconut-macaroons/
We hope this helps!
Thanks for the quick reply! Ok got it 🙂
You’re very welcome, CSL! 😊
I love these cookies! It was part of my Christmas cookie box. Instead of slicing and baking, I rolled the dough out and cut it into little Christmas trees.
Hi DWB! Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your baking tip with us!
What a brilliant idea to shape it into Christmas trees! It must be very cute.
Happy Holiday!
I’ve successfully made this recipe many times, but this time I swapped matcha for hojicha and added a little bit of miso (inspired by your miso butter cookies) and the cookies turned out beautifully.
Hi Laura! Awesome! 👏🏻
Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your experience with us.
Happy Baking!