These Christmas tree cookies are made with matcha shortbread for a fun holiday cookie. They have a crumbly, buttery texture with green tea flavor which also gives the cookies a natural green color.

I’ve been making a lot of Christmas cookie recipes, and I have one more recipe to share with you: these matcha green tea-flavored shortbread cookies, built to look like Christmas trees. They are easy to make with flower-shaped cookie cutters of varying sizes and have a crumbly texture that melts in your mouth.

I’ve been making the matcha shortbread cookies for years, but last year was the first time I tried to shape them like trees. This year, I tried to improve upon them, by also decorating them with “ornaments” and also adding a chocolate bottom layer for the tree trunk. I’m pretty excited about how these came out. And just for fun, I sprinkled some confectioner’s sugar snow on top.

I’ve used a similar method to make chocolate pinecone cookies, too.

I love the flavor of matcha powder, but I also love that you can make green cookies without using any food coloring.

For baking recipes, I always recommend using Maeda-en Gold matcha powder* which gives cookies, cakes, and other desserts a beautiful green color. I bake with matcha powder a lot and have found this brand to be the best.

Matcha Shortbread Ingredients

All-purpose flour
Softened butter cut into small pieces
High-quality matcha powder
Granulated sugar

How to Make Them

Cream the butter, sugar, and matcha powder together until light and fluffy. At low speed, add half of the flour. Once blended, slowly add the rest and mix until a crumbly dough forms. It’s ready when you can squeeze the dough and it holds together.

Roll the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper to ¼” thick. Peel off the top piece of parchment and then cut out your shapes. I recommend using four cookie cutters of the same shape that are graduated sizes – flowers or stars* work best.

For my trees, I cut three large stars, one medium, two small, and one tiny star for each tree. Reroll your dough scraps and cut as many shapes as you can.

Bake the cookies in batches based on size (small ones all together, etc). If you want your trees to be decorated, you can add sprinkles, nonpareils, or dragees. The smallest cookies will take 6 minutes to bake at 350°F and the largest will take 11 minutes.

Fully cool the cookies before assembling. Once they’ve cooled, place a small dollop of frosting on the bottom of each cookie and stack them to create trees.

If you want to make tree stumps (as seen in the photos) you can make a half batch of chocolate shortbread, cut them into small squares, and attach them to the cookies with frosting once cooled.

To finish the cookies, dust them with powdered sugar so it looks like snow.

Storage Tips

Shortbread keeps well for up to a week in an airtight container. You can make and bake the cookies and assemble and decorate them later.

To store the Christmas tree cookies, I recommend using a container that is deep enough to hold the cookies upright and still be able to secure a lid. Keep them in a single layer.

More Matcha Christmas Cookies

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