[Recipe] Earl Grey Mookie
/I know, I know what you're thinking; what the heck is a mookie? For those of you who have seen my Matcha Mochi Cookie post you can guess that it is my mochi cookie (moo-kie). Okay, I don't know if that name will stick but let me know what you guys think.
Earl Grey is beautiful. Matcha is overrated.
Matcha is an instant favorite in the food world and for a good reason too. But sometimes us food enthusiasts want something different with a tea flavor. Earl Grey is an up-and-coming favorite with hojicha and genmaicha trailing closely behind their greener older brother. I decided to tackle an earl grey cookie, as earl grey doesn't get the credit it deserves. I stuck with the matcha mochi cookie proportions but had two different methods for incorporating the tea flavor into the cookie. One is to just substitute ground tea leaves as a 1 to 1 substitute for matcha powder. Another would be to seep the tea in warm milk, hopefully to get a more pronounced flavor. I set up an experiment and made my matcha mochi cookie as my control.
my three batches of cookies
1) Matcha Mookie Original : Turned out as expected, fluffy and crisp.
2) Mookie Original Recipe with ground Earl Grey Tea leaves: This cookie turned out just like it's Matcha Brother but with a beautiful white exterior with black flecks.
3) Mookie with Earl Grey Leaves, with addition leaves steeped in Milk: These cookies did not melt down and flatten. They were more dense than the other cookies and felt like a hockey puck. There are two reasons why I think this may have happened. The warm milk slightly cooked and set the eggs in the batter. This is unlikely as I let it cool to body temperature, and I don't think I have ever cooked an egg in my hands. Neither would you, unless you are part of the Fantastic Four and are a human torch. A more plausible reason is that the milk proteins denatured and gave the milk thickening properties. When protein denatures it unravels and tangles up. This is a reason why hydrocolloids, or thickeners (such as starches), work the way they do. Also when I heated the milk I evaporated water. So even though I used a cup of the warmed milk, per volume it has less volume than milk right out of the carton.
So there you have it. The answer for making an earl grey cookie is to just directly substitute earl grey leaves for powder. I tried to be clever by steeping the leaves in milk, but the simplest approach worked the best.
Lovely Earl Grey Cookie
Ingredients
180 g (1 cup) - Sugar
100 g (7 Tbs) - Butter
300 g (3 cups) - Sweet Rice Flour or Mochiko
4 g (1 tsp) - Baking Powder
6 g (1.5 tsp) or 2 tea bags - Ground Early Grey Tea Leaves
5 g (1 Tbs) - Milk Powder
2 eggs 3/4 cup of Milk
Delicious batter. Looks like ice cream.
Instructions
- Preheat over to 400°F.
- Open two earl grey tea bags grind the tea leaves in a coffee grinder or manually chop the leaves (use them arms!).
- Combine your sugar and butter into a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and cream the butter for 10 minutes. Occasionally scrap the sides with a spatula. While the sugar is creaming, mix the dry ingredients together.
- After the butter is creamed, mix in two eggs and milk. When the eggs and milk are incorporated, add half the dry ingredients at a time until incorporated. You should end up with a batter with a fluffier and lighter than your average cookie dough. Portion out the dough into small ice cream scoop size balls and space them 2-inches apart from one another. They will spread fast!
- Bake your cookie until your cookie is brown on the edges. About 20-25 minutes.