Baking with Tea: Tea-Flavored Shortbread Cookies

Of course, we all know that tea is perhaps the world’s greatest beverage.  But, it also adds great flavors to baking, such as cookies.  Below is a recipe for Tea-Flavored Shortbread Cookies from the very goodfood site Fine Cooking.  For this, we if course used a Scottish Tea.

Before you start baking, gather these ingredients:

1 1/2 cups butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
zest of 2 medium sized oranges
6 tea bags from any Scottish Tea
seeds of 1 vanilla bean

1) Preheat oven to 350 F.

2) Beat butter until smooth, add sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy.

3) Add vanilla, orange zest, and vanilla bean seeds to buter and mix to combine.

4) Empty contents of tea bags into a clean coffee or spice grinder and pulse until finely ground. Add ground tea to flour, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl and stir to combine.

5) Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 2 – 3 additions, combining well between additions.

6) Form dough into 2 discs, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refridgerator or freeze for later use.

7) Roll chilled dough out on a floured surface to 1/4″ thickness and cut into desired shapes. Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 10 – 14 minutes (depending on size and thickness) until edges just begin to turn golden. Cool.

Makes approximately 6 dozen 2″ round cookies.

Thanks to FineCooking.com member kwilky for the recipe.