Matcha Green Tea & White Chocolate Chip Cookies
By: Ritavations, Home
Tags: Cookies, Matcha, Recipe, Baking, Green Tea

Matcha Green Tea & White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! While I didn’t come up with a corned beef shepherd’s pie recipe (that we’d wash down with Irish whiskey)… I do have something GREEN and tasty to share. This recipe for Matcha & White Chocolate Chip Cookies is delicious, easy to make, and undeniably green!!

Matcha Green Tea & White Chocolate Chip Cookie

Matcha and white chocolate are kind of a thing. They make gourmet chocolate bars out of this combo so I’m not inventing anything new here, but I love this recipe since it’s significantly lower in sugar than most matcha cookies and is easy to make. No rolling the dough and no cookie cutters needed. Just simple ingredients that can be made “healthier” with a few tweaks, if you dare! If you already like the flavour of green tea ice-cream or matcha lattes, you’ll love this too!!

While I always recommend making a recipe as per the instructions for the first try, I’m always up for tweaking it to be healthier anywhere I can. This is kind of my cooking mission statement! So if you’re making this for a second time and you’re brave enough for a different flavour/texture, here are a few substitution options:

Butter: I’m not afraid of butter so I haven’t tried coconut oil with this particular cookie recipe, but if you’re not using organic grass-fed butter (a game changer as far as butter is concerned, in my opinion) and would like to try a different “fat”, coconut oil can be substituted in recipes 1:1. Coconut oil has a different taste being that it’s sweeter than other fats, so do let me know what you thought of the flavour when combined with the matcha and white chocolate.

Sugar: Okay, so here’s where I always feel like I need to explain myself… If you’ve been following my recipes or my Instagram feed, you know I don’t have a big sweet tooth and I’m forever trying to reduce sugar for our family where I can, so the amount of sweetener I use in a recipe will always be on the low end. Typical matcha cookie recipes call for 3+ times the amount of sugar I list in the ingredients – even so, I have made this WITHOUT any added sweeter (or reduced it even further from 1/2 cup to just a 1/4 cup of maple syrup), since for me (and therefore my family! Haha), the white chocolate chips in every bite are sweet enough! I completely understand that white chocolate chips alone – even though they are sweeter than milk/bittersweet chocolate chips – are not sweet enough for most cookie palates, so I’ve compromised at a 1/2 cup of sugar/maple syrup for two dozen cookies because I’m thoughtful like that. Typical recipes for call for 1.5–2 cups of sugar for 24 cookies! Gasp!! Is that really necessary when there’s already white chocolate in every bite? You can of course sweeten this to taste by adding more sugar. I’m not your mom – I’m just a little bossy with this sugar stuff.

Flour: I specified an all-purpose flour for this recipe, but……. I’m all about fiber, WHOLE grains, and tricking (encouraging) my family’s taste buds towards healthier options so I do enjoy making this recipe with whole grain/whole wheat flour every now and then. It does taste more earthy, but if you’re into the whole grain thing, try switching it up next time and see if it’s still palatable for you. ?

Check out my recipe for the beautiful and delicious Matcha Cashew & Rose Latte

If you saw my recipe for Matcha Cashew & Rose Latte, I mention that there are different grades/qualities of matcha tea on the market, ranging from culinary (most suitable for cooking) to ceremonial grades (the highest quality with the highest price tag). Since we’re baking cookies and not sipping on this fine tea, a culinary grade matcha is perfectly fine.

Matcha Green Tea & White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups room temperature butter *see above

1/2 cup sugar or maple syrup *see above for a discussion on reducing/increasing the sugar in this recipe (I’m more of a 1/4 cup or less sugar/maple syrup kind of gal!)

3 eggs

1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

2 2/3 cups all purpose flour *see above

3 Tbsp. matcha green tea powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1.5 cups white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using a hand held mixer, blend the butter and sugar/maple syrup until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until creamy. In a separate bowl, add flour, matcha powder, salt, and baking soda. Whisk until well blended. Add the liquid ingredients (butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla mixture) to the dry ingredients (flour, matcha powder, salt, and baking soda) and mix until combined. Add the white chocolate chips and using your hands, knead/blend everything together until the dough is smooth a big sticky. With your hands, roll 24 balls of dough (approximately 1 1/2–2 Tbsp. of dough per cookie) and place them on your cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Slightly flatten each ball. Bake for 12–14 minutes. Do not over-bake. While the centre of the cookies may feel a bit underdone, they will firm up as the cookies cool. Let the cookies cool completely on the cookie sheet and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

These cookies have a “mature” taste because of the green tea flavour and they do contain caffeine. You’re using three tablespoons of matcha powder for two dozen cookies so the caffeine content will be on the low side, but it is noteworthy. Also present is some beneficial antioxidants from the matcha! Yay!!

And that concludes our green tea-St Patty’s Day fusion! Happy baking and creating, guys!! Xo