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 sooo good!!! Thank you for the recipe!
I made them the second time today – delicious!
I also made chocolate cookies with this recipe. I swapped the matcha with cocoa powder and put semi sweet chocolate morsels instead of white chocolate (although next time I’ll use white for both I think). They came out just as good!
Great and easy recipe to experiment with different flavors 🙂
Hi Miya! I’m so happy to hear your feedback and thank you for taking your time to write here (as I’m sure other readers would love to try with different flavors too!). Thank you for trying my recipe, Miya!
Hi Nami,
Thanks for the recipe. I chilled the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours but when I cut, the dough was broken into small pieces :(. Any advice?
Hi Bamboo Ng! First of all, did you use the scale? If you use a cup measurement, flour tends to be more than actual amount (See the video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HMZ5Dt-Qag). However, this cookie is more like sable type cookies and it’s not soft chewy cookies. So the dough is a harder kind. If you leave the dough out for a little bit longer, it might be slightly easier to slice. BUT when we bake the cookies, we want them to be still chilled so the shape will remain, instead of droopy cookies.
Hi, my cookie turns out so soft and crumbly. Is this how you intended the recipe to be? It’s also a bit too sweet for me, next time I’ll give less sugar. Thanks for the recipe
Hi Siska! Thank you for trying this recipe! These cookies are sable/butter cookies/shortbread cookies, so they are hard and crisp kind, not soft and chewy cookies. So it’s kind of crumbly before you put into a log shape.
And I always ask this question first to anyone who mentioned about crumbly… Did you measure the flour with a scale or cup? Because the weight of flour is very different if you use a cup and measure incorrectly… and I have a video for this.
https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-measure-flour/
If you measure the flour (and all the ingredients) with a scale, please ignore the comment above.
I think you can work with less sugar, but I follow the original recipe from this Japanese cookbook (mentioned in Notes). I would reduce the amount of white chocolate chip so you won’t alter the cookie dough recipe. 🙂
Hope that helps!
I’ve literally never left a comment on an online recipe but this was really amazing, thank you! I especially liked that the ingredients were in grams and everything was so specific. I made this as a gift for a friend and they turned out delicious!
Hi Clara! Aww thank you so much for your kind feedback and I’m so happy you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you for taking your time to write this comment. 🙂
How long can you keep dough in fridge? 5 days?
Hi Amber! I read online before that homemade cookie dough can be kept in the fridge for 3-5 days and 6-12 months in freezer. But I’ve never kept the dough for a long time so I can’t personally tell my experience… I think for the best result, bake it soon while the eggs are fresh. 🙂
I am very interested in making these! I feel like they would be super fun for St. Patrick’s Day since they are vibrant green! Do you think a hand mixer can really handle the dough well? I don’t want to burn out the motor on my hand mixer with a super thick dough… >.>
Hi Samantha! I am so sorry for my late response (Today’s St. Patty’s Day…). I think hand mixer can be a bit too fragile from Step 8 (adding flour). Change to a silicone spatula and mix. 🙂
This recipe is GOLD. We have been using this recipe to make cookies for a fundraiser and it is a hit every. single. time. Perfectly bitter and sweet. Sometimes we had a sprinkle of sea salt on top of each cookie before baking it to elevate the taste. Thank you!
Hi Louids! Thank you so much for your kind feedback. I’m so happy you’re enjoying this recipe. 🙂 Yeah, sprinkle of sea salt… delicious, enhance the matcha flavor more. Thank you for writing!
I recently made these for the holidays, and they were a resounding hit among family and friends.
Hi Frances! Thank you so much for your kind feedback. So happy your friends and family enjoyed these cookies! 🙂 xo
Hey there! I followed the recipe’s instructions exactly (using cup/tsp/tbsp), but my dough turned out super crumbly and I was unable to use it all together! Is it possible the conversion from g to cups is off?
Hi Gabby! You might have done this but I have to ask… to measure 1 cup of flour, did you do this step? 1) Fluff up the flour several times with a spoon. 2) Using the spoon, sprinkle the flour into your dry-cup measure (the one that measures exactly a cup at the top). 3) Scrape off the excess with a knife. If you scoop up flour with a measuring cup, your 1 cup can be 150 grams. A properly measured cup of all purpose flour weighs 4.25 oz (120 g). I’ve made this recipe with measuring cups as well, just to make sure it works, but please remember, it can’t be precise…
Hey Nami, thanks so much for the quick reply — I appreciate it!
I ended up remaking them with the technique you described (and made sure to weigh them properly just to double-check) and yes, they came out perfectly!
Thank you so much for taking the time to clarify. These cookies are delicious and I’m so glad I made them a second time. Happy holidays!
Hi Gabby! Awww! I’m so happy to hear this! Thank you so much! I test my recipes several times or more and measure each ingredient correctly (I take it seriously), so my recipes “should” work, except for occasional typos… 🙂 Happy Holidays!!!!
Thank you for sharing this recipe! I didn’t make them cute like yours though, I actually made witch fingers for Halloween and these taste great, are easy to make and give it just the look I was going for! I will definitely make them again to go with my white peach tea! <3
Hi Allison! Thanks so much for trying this recipe! So glad this recipe worked out for you. 🙂
Hi, would like to ask if semi-sweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips can be used instead, cause I’m not really a fan of milk/white chocolate. Thanks!
Hi Cherie! They are very chocolately and if you use high grade matcha, you may not want to ruin the distinctive matcha flavor with chocolate flavor… which is why it’s subtle white chocolate.
If you don’t like the white/milk chocolate, you can roll the dough (when it’s logged and before cutting) in sugar too. It adds good amount of sweetness (like white chocolate) without disturbing matcha taste. 🙂
may i know can i omit the egg yolk since my family got allergies to egg?
I am so sorry but this recipe requires egg and you can’t omit it… 🙁
Yes, I made it and I really doubt I am the only one made it. It’s such a crap. The dough is totally wrong texture, it basically falling apart. I am so frustrated with the dough and I didn’t lost my appetite to try the taste because I really don’t want another big disappointment.
Hi Cecilia! Thanks for trying this recipe and I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. This recipe is probably one of the frequently made recipes on my site and you can see the pictures of my readers’ beautiful green tea cookies on different social media (#justonecookbook) and also comments posted before yours. I’m happy to help to see what went wrong if you could give me a bit more information about your experience. Again, sorry yours didn’t come out well.
thank you for sharing such easy to follow recipe’s . I’d surely try this with my grand kids when visiting back to Japan .
Hi Marly! I’m glad to hear you enjoy my recipes. I hope you will enjoy making these cookies with our grandchildren! 🙂
Made these two days ago and already they’re gone! Delicious and as pictured. Thanks for a fantastic recipe ????????
Hi Rachael! I’m so glad you tried this recipe and enjoyed it. Thank you for your kind feedback! 🙂