Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!
I’m feeling really lucky to be celebrating Christmas in California where it’s such nice weather that it almost doesn’t feel like Christmas. Mr. K and I have been busy feasting away: crab guacamole dip, hot pot, company Christmas parties and more.
I’ll be sharing some of the food we’ve had soon. I spent most of Christmas Eve doing massive amounts of holiday cookie baking and I’m really tired, so I’ll keep this post short. I did want to quickly share my Christmas tree shortbread cookies though, as I’m really happy with how they turned out.
Matcha green tea shortbread is one of the holiday cookies I always make and this year I decided to stack them up to look like trees after seeing it on this post.
I didn’t actually keep them together with frosting. Instead, I just stacked them up for family and for the ones I gifted to others, they just got the individual cookies. Otherwise, it can get a little messy to eat if you have to take apart the tree pieces.
The tree design is pretty easy to make. You just need several different sized cookie cutters of the same shape (stars and flowers work well). To make it even more realistic, you can do a chocolate shortbread piece at the bottom of each tree, but I didn’t have the time to make another set of cookies.
Matcha Green Tea Shortbread Tree Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- a pinch of salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature and cut into small pieces
- 2 1/2 tablespoons high quality matcha green tea powder
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
Instructions
- Beat butter, matcha powder and sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
- Add salt and half of the flour to the butter mixer and mix on low speed. Gradually add remaining flour, mixing just until blended. The mixture should look crumbly, but if you squeeze it between your fingers, it will come together. Gather the dough into a large ball.
- Place dough between two pieces of parchment paper. Roll dough with rolling pin until 1/4 inch thick. Make sure you use parchment paper, otherwise, the dough is too soft and sticky to roll out.
- Use four cookie cutters of the same shape (stars and flowers work best) to cut into dough, but with varying degree of size. You can cut a few pieces to decide how many of each you want to stack for your tree. I ended up doing three of the biggest, two of the medium, one small, and one tiny one for the top of each tree. Re-roll dough scraps and cut more cookies until no more dough remains.
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Bake pieces of the same size together. Bake until cookies puff up slightly and edges start to turn a light brown. I baked 11 minutes on the largest ones and 6 minutes on the smallest. After cookies are finished and have cooled, you can stack them to look like trees. You can also add frosting to the bottoms of the cookies to make them stick together.
Notes
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Can I use applesauce instead of butter?
unfortunately no! applesauce sometimes can work as a substitute, but not for shortbread!
Where can I buy matcha powder?
Japanese grocery stores. Sometimes other Asian grocery stores carry it too
Beautiful cookies! Do you think this recipe would work well in a cookie press since it’s soft? Thanks!
I think it would crumble too much in a cookie press.
Belated Merry Christmas! I tried to post here via my phone on Christmas but I guess it didn’t work. The tree cookies are super cute, love the color on them from the matcha, too. So pretty!
Merry Christmas to you too! =)
they are so cute!
thanks!!
Merry Christmas ^_^!!!
Merry Christmas to you too!
Merry Christmas to you and Mr. K! I love your Hello Kitty toy and the shortbread trees! So cute!
hehe, I try to have a Hello Kitty for every occasion. But i’m starting to get a little overboard because each year I find a new seasonal one that I can’t resist adding to my collection. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! The shortbread cookies look amazing 🙂
They took a while to arrange but I think it was worth the effort. hehe. Merry Christmas!
Yum! These are so cute and they look like Mochi!
thanks!
Merry Xmas Kirbie!
Merry Christmas Faye!
Wishing the both of you a very Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you and the Missus!
Merry Christmas, Kirbie and Mr. K!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!