Tea Shortbread Coins

Tea Shortbread Coins are the recipe to whip up when you want a simple and straight forward cookie where tea is the star of the show. With one basic dough recipe and very few ingredients, you’re able to appreciate 3 very different styles of tea.While Earl Grey Shortbread is fragrant and full of vanilla goodness, the matcha version is bittersweet and earthy. Masala Chai Shortbread is a yummy choice when you’re craving a touch of warm spice. And of course, you can’t go wrong with dipping or drizzling any of these with chocolate!To get these biscuits to resemble coins, you’ll need to roll and shape the dough, then chill and roll it again. The baton-like dough log can then be stored in the freezer if you don’t want to bake up all of the cookies at once. Need 2 dozen or just 2 cookies? Just slice them off as you need them!Tea Shortbread Coins are rich and buttery with melt-in-you-mouth tenderness and a slight snap. These quarter-sized nibblers are perfect for making at a moments notice, ideal for Christmas cookie swaps or for shipping out to loved ones this time of year!
Tea Shortbread Coins

Makes about 3 dozen-1 1/4″ cookies (1 log of dough).

Ingredients:

1 cup flour, plus extra as bench flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

{Variations-choose 1 option}

Earl Grey Shortbread: Add the contents of 5 Earl Grey tea bags + 1 Tbsp flour.

Matcha Shortbread: Add 2 Tbsp of sifted Matcha.

Masala Chai Shortbread: Add the contents of 3 Irish Breakfast tea bags, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cardamom, 1/4 tsp ginger, 1/8 tsp cloves, 1/8 tsp black pepper and 1/8 tsp nutmeg.

Equipment:

mixing bowl

spatula

sifter

plastic wrap

ruler

work surface

baking sheet lined with parchment

chef’s knife

cooling rack

Directions:

1. Sift the dry ingredients together (including the tea). Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together, then add the dry ingredients and mix everything together with the spatula. When the mixture becomes crumbly, use your hand to gently knead the mass into a dough until it just comes together.

2. Place a large piece of plastic wrap on a work surface. Lightly scatter some bench flour on it. Place the dough in the plastic wrap, then roll it into a 10″ log. Wrap the dough with the plastic wrap, then transfer it to a baking sheet to chill in the fridge.

3. Allow the dough to chill for 20 minutes in the fridge, then remove it and roll it again on the counter until you get a baton-like, 12″-14″ log, depending on how large you want the coins. Place again in fridge for 20 minutes to chill. Roll again to create a log of even thickness. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Remove the dough from the fridge, then cut it with a sharp knife into 1/4″ thick coins. On a baking sheet lined with parchment, place the coins 1″ apart from one another. Bake for 8-9 minutes, until very lightly golden, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

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Bonnie Eng

Thanks for your message, Cindy! These are pretty easy to make…hope you can try them sometime soon! 🙂

Reply
Notes on Tea

Your cookies seem perfectly round. Do you have a special trick or is this due to lots of practice.
If you are mailing these, I’ve got room in my mailbox. 😉

Reply
Bonnie Eng

Hey Georgia! Ya, so there’s no special trick, it’s basically a matter of being methodical and patient. Rolling and chilling the dough, then continue to roll and chill for as many times as it takes to get a round look. I think it also helps to rotate the log slightly as one cuts them out, only to prevent the log from deforming under the pressure of the knife. Please look out for an email from me. 😉

Reply
Trever

These cookies look so lovely! What is your secret on getting them so perfectly round? These are probably the most perfectly shaped cookies i have ever seen!! I know people say (as well as yourself) to do the rolling method to get them round, but they never come out looking as gorgeous as this. Do you have a secret step or tool in your tool belt that you wouldn’t mind sharing? If it truly is the rolling, then hats off to you as you’ve PERFECTED it! Haha!

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Beatrice

Whenever I make (or try to make) cookies, I never ever get them round like yours. You are a magician in the kitchen Bonnie 😉
They look great! With some edible gold and silver food spray they would be also perfect as new year gifts 😀

Reply
Bonnie Eng

Magician…hah! 🙂 Gold or silver spray would be so elegant! I just bought some gold leaf the other week, a special treat for the holidays. Perhaps I could try that too. How are things in Vienna, B? I just watched a travel special of Austria with my mom last night and was thinking of you…:)

Reply
Rechelle

These were so good! I couldn’t get them to roll out as small as yours but they were delicious and easy. Thanks for your great ideas with tea!

Reply
Bonnie Eng

Hi Rechelle–happy holidays and thank you so much for your message! So glad to hear that they turned out well for you. Hoping to come up with more tea ideas for you to enjoy…all the best. 🙂

Reply
varya

I made these (the Earl Grey and a Masala Chai version) and they are both beautiful and tasty. Perfect recipe and quite easy to execute.Thank you so much.

Reply
Rachel

Any suggestions about using other types of tea? I have some chai teabags that I’d like to try with these. Maybe just trial and error? I’ll start with 4 teabags.

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Catherine C.

Bonnie…thank you so much for the recipe. I am making orange cardamom, lemon lavender, and earl gray tomorrow. Happy New Year!

Reply
Seb

Thank you for the recipe! Can I use a cookie cutter instead of chilling and rolling them? What would I need to do if I just want to use a cookie cutter? Thank you!

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Carter Lizenhauer

Hey these came out very dry and mealy. The flavor was there, but bland. The dough was extremely crumbly, so we had to add some milk to make it work. Is there a way to actually get some flavor and sweetness into it?

Reply
Joyce

I had the same issue! I did one batch and this next batch I’m going to put back in the mixing bowl and add something else—milk like you said perhaps.

Reply
Shelby

Do you think you could easily swap out the butter for a dairy free option like earth balance? These sound amazing! Would also know your tricks to lovely round coins! I made a similar recipe a few years ago but I used lavender earl great tea bags. I can’t find the recipe but this I’m sure is close! 💛 much love.

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jessica

1 stick of butter was in no way shape or form enough to come close to holding this dough together.

Reply
Judy

Unfortunately this didn’t turn out well for me. I made the matcha batch and the amount of matcha used is way too much… and that’s coming from someone who LOVES matcha. There isn’t enough sweetness to balance out the bitterness. I also followed directions and sifted/mixed the dry ingredients first, including the powdered sugar since it’s dry, and then I realized the next step was to mix he butter and sugar… oops! I was really hoping to enjoy these but I’m not sure how to adjust the recipe.

Reply
Paloma

I wonder if some people made the same mistake I did, I misinterpreted sugar as a dry ingredient so I mixed it with flour, only to see the next step saying combine butter with sugar and vanilla…

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