Textured Heart Cookie

A simple cookie design can be made more interesting with a bit of texture. Creating the textured background for the heart isn't hard at all, it just takes some stiff royal icing, a small square tip brush and some time.


Here's how:

Bake a batch of sugar cookies. I cut out squares and rounds of cookie dough and then with a smaller heart cutter made an impression in each of the cookies. The impression will stay during baking.

Pipe some thinned royal icing around the heart.

Use a knife to spread it to the edges of the cookie. Be sure it's just a thin coat of icing since you'll be adding plenty more in the next step. Let this dry completely before moving on.

Get your square tip brush, a small cup of water and a paper towel ready and starting at the top edge of the cookie pipe a row of dots using stiff royal icing. In one stroke and pulling downward, swipe each dot with the brush. Be sure to clean the brush periodically, dabbing off excess water with paper towel. Add another row of royal icing dots and repeat.

Keep working down the cookie and around the heart impression.

Try your best to keep your rows even and straight.

When you are done, let the icing dry before moving onto the next step.

Outline the heart with flood consistency royal icing.

Fill in the heart with more of the flood icing and give the cookie a gentle shake to help it settle into place. Let the cookies dry completely before serving or packaging.

Green Tea Shortbread Cookies

These Green Tea Shortbread Cookies are exotic, pretty and full of flavor.

Making them using the slicing method, instead of rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters, makes them especially quick and simple to whip up.

I love that the rich green color of the cookies comes naturally from the addition of three tablespoons of Matcha powder. Packaged with a homemade tag, these sturdy cookies make a sweet gift.

Here's the recipe:

Green Tea Shortbread Cookies
(makes 5 to 6 dozen 2-inch cookies)

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
3 tablespoons Matcha powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 turbinado sugar (for coating the cookies before baking)

In a large mixing bowl whip together the butter, Matcha powder, vanilla, almond extract and salt. Add the granulated sugar and whip again until light and fluffy.

Butter and Matcha powder in the mixing bowl.

The butter, sugar and flavorings creamed together. All that's left to add is the flour.

Finally, add the four and mix until well-combined and a soft dough forms.

Divide the dough into thirds and using plastic wrap, shape each into and even-sized log or rectangle. Place the wrapped dough into the refrigerator to chill for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line sheetpans with parchment paper.

Place the turbinado sugar on a clean surface and roll the dough, one log at a time into the sugar, gently patting the sugar into the dough.

Slice the logs into 1/4 thick cookies and place on the sheetpans, leaving at least 1-inch between them.  The cookies will increase in size during baking.

Bake for 18 minutes or until golden brown.  Let the cookies cool on the sheetpans before transferring to a cooling rack.