Tags
chocolate earl grey shortbread, chocolate shortbread, earl grey cookies, jasmine earl grey tea, lady grey tea, lavender earl grey tea
My eyes flitted past “Chocolate Shortbread Coins” in the Art & Soul of Baking this afternoon and I instantly knew what I was going to bake! My friend’s mother requested “something sweet, and chocolate is always a win” she said, so I figured this would be something that would keep our interests that would be ready in just a few hours time – a bit shorter of a wait from the chocolate mousse cake I have been wanting to bake (keep your eyes peeled!) from Around My French Table.
Since I didn’t have just plain Earl Grey, but three different types of Earl Grey, lavender, jasmine and lady, I decided that I would try to make a little with each. Little did I know that the ingredients don’t make much dough to begin with so I could make a full batch of each.
The food processor really makes quick work of it all, all three doughs were prepared in under a half hour, then rolled in plastic wrap and set in the fridge to firm up for slicing. I didn’t like the look of the slices as much, so next time I might just make little balls of dough and flatten them out or press the dough into a rectangle and slice off more traditional looking shortbread pieces. Either way, the dough is really easy to manage and shape once it has been chilled.
Your hands will also smell amazing when you are through rolling the dough, it was a very aromatic, good time making these!
Chocolate cookies of any sort that are dark like this are going to be hard to tell when they are done, so as they get close to the end of the baking time, press them with your fingers to check for doneness. These are really easy to overbake, so whenever in doubt, just pull them out of the oven a bit early – it can’t hurt to have a bit softer cookie than you wanted, but you can’t make something that baked over hard to return to something softer.
I remember when I was baking cookies as a kid, I would wait for the cookies to be baked “hard”… thinking that leaving them in the oven for a bit longer than the recipe asked for was the only way to get them to firm up. Boy do I wish someone would have shown me different! I even found that if I microwaved the cookies for a few seconds the next day, then I could get them to be soft, like they just came out of the oven, but if I didn’t eat them fast enough they would get pretty hard and crispy again. So I always enjoyed store-bought cookies that were made fresh in the store’s own bakery because those were soft and chewy, unlike the cookies I seemed to be making.
The general consensus on these shortbread cookies was that everyone preferred a different type of Earl Grey and there was no unanimous favorite. It was fun to play around with the different teas and I will try it again with just plain Earl Grey the next time I have some!
Ingredients:
- 1 TBS Earl Grey tea, about two teabags, finely ground if you are using loose leaf tea
- 1/4 oz granulated sugar
- 1 stick cold, unsalted butter cut into pieces
- 3/4 C unbleached all-purpose flour
- 3 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder, Dutch-process or natural
- 1/8 tsp salt
PLace the granulated sugar and tea leaves in the bowl of the food processor and grind for one minute or until the leaves are very finely chopped. Add the butter, flour, cocoa, and salt and process for about 45 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and break up any large clumps with the spatula. Process for another 15-30 seconds, until the dough looks uniformly dark and forms large, shaggy clumps. Dump the dough out on to a work surface and knead gently several times, just to bring it together.
Squeeze the dough into a a log about 12 inches long and about one inch in diameter and gently roll it back and forth until smooth. Dont add flour if the dough is sticky, simple refrigerate the dough for 15-20 minutes to firm up the butter, then try again.
Cut a piece of plastic wrap several inches longer than the log and center the log at one long edge of the wrap. Roll the log into the wrap so it is tightly bound by the plastic. Twist the ends of the wrap to secure the bag and help to creat a rounded shape. You can use a cardboard paper towel roll to keep the roll of dough nicely rounded during storage. Just slit the cardboard lengthwise and slip the log inside it to help keep the rounded shape. Refrigerate for two hours.
Preheat the oven to 300F and position an oven rack in the center. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper.
Remove the cardboard and plastic wrap from the dough log and use a thin knife to slice it into 3/8 inch thick rounds. Place the cookies about one inch apart (although mine didn’t spread at all… so I placed my second batch much closer together) on prepared baking sheet. Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through the baking time for 30 minutes, or until the cookies are cooked through and look dry on top. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and let them cool completely.
* The dough can be made ahead of time, up to three days in advance.