Cookays....!

Yes, cookies on this fine, cold, soon to be snowy March day. So it hasn't been the best of days, yes, but I did bake some cookies. They're nothing to brag about but they are unusual. I wanted something like, say, key lime pie in a smaller form but haven't had the time to bake a pie or pocket pies. I found a recipe while sifting through my extensive Google Reader account of food blogs for Key Lime Meltaways from Every Last Cookie - a great blog, I really recommend it.

As I didn't actually have limes in the house - I was using bottled Key Lime Juice - I decided to try something I picked up from the Cupcake Project, another blog gracing my Reader account. I infused the butter with green tea; a relatively wasteful but potentially invaluable technique. They more closely resemble shortbread or sugar cookies than anything else, in case you were wondering. So here it is:

I realize now that I really didn't make what was outlined in the original recipe I found, but look at that plate despite...

Key Lime-Green Tea Cookies!

1 3/4 cups whole-wheat flour

2 tbsp cornstarch (or arrowroot)

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2-3 tbsp lime juice

1 stick butter

2 tbsp canola oil

3 tbsp green tea

water

First melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Mix in the green tea upon the butter's melting and stir over low heat for about 5 minutes. Strain the butter from the tea leaves using, say, a cheese cloth, coffee filter, or as I used paper tea bags (the sort for bagging your own). Set aside.

Combine the dry ingredients and, separately, the wet ones. Add wet to dry ingredients (in preferably an electric mixer) until just combined, adding water until the dough resembles a stiff but malleable and not crumbling (as mine initially did).

Spoon onto a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies.

What also works well is to pour the batter onto parchment paper and carefully rolling into a dense log, chilling for roughly an hour, and slicing so as to produce small, disk-shaped petit-gateaux.

Honestly, I have a terrible cold (Darn you March!) so I can't taste anything, but they seem good to my reduced palate and I've been told they have a nice, mild flavor.

Enjoy them with a cup of hot tea, perhaps?

Oh, and heres a bonus picture from some peanut butter cookie cups I made a few weeks ago, per request of my better half:

More Cookais!...