An apartment big enough for all of us and our ideas

in the kitchen...

Green Tea Powder (matcha) is IMPOSSIBLE to find. After visiting every "crunchy" store south of Hartford, I caved in and bought a powdered green tea mix made by Lipton (which turned out to be crystallized tea that smells like mint). As I was pulling out of the Shaws parking lot I noticed a Starbucks and remembered the green tea latte, which, is made with matcha. I went up to the counter and basically asked if I could just purchase a few tablespoons of the green tea powder. Of course, he said no. Then, I asked if I could order a grande latte with green tea powder on the side. After rolling his eyes and letting out a groan, he yelled out my order and rang me out. I drove home sipping on my steamed milk feeling very content that I was finally able to make Green Tea Shortbread Cookies from Smitten Kitchen.

I think the best part about making these cookies is the color of the dough. It reminds me of play-dough. Deb over at Smitten Kitchen used these leaf shaped cookie cutters which, are perfect for this color green. I, however, only had these on hand:

As much as I was hoping to be able to make some "I'm Crafty" cookies, I wasn't able to fit all of the letters. The barista at Starbucks only gave me 1 tablespoon of matcha so I had to third the recipe. I ended up using a glass as a cookie cutter.

Not as fun as ABCs but trust me, they're still good. The cookies lost a lot of the green color after baking but according to the recipe, the darker the edges the more intense the flavor. I might have to test that with my next batch.

I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to add the white chocolate ganache filling because the cookies are delicious as is but since I believe in indulgence, I went ahead and whipped up some ganache. Honestly, I wasn't too crazy about it on its own but the ganache made the cookies a million times better.