Tea biscuits

The perfect Mother's day-spoiling treat.

I’ve seen green tea biscuits trending in the food world for a while and decided I wanted to make some – the problem was that they require ‘matcha powder’ which is both very expensive and very hard to find. I decided to make biscuits using other kinds of tea and paired them with icings that I thought would compliment their flavour. It’s really easy and I have to say that people loved them – the overall winner being the Earl Grey cookies with orange frosting.

With these recipes I talk about ‘tea leaves’ – but you don’t need to go out and buy loose-leaf tea, simply empty a few tea bags and use those leaves. You can also experiment with different flavours of tea – Chai/Oolong/honeybush/Chamomile/various types of Rooibos.

Earl Grey cookies with orange frosting

Ingredients:

500g Sasko Cookie Mix

1 ½ Tbsp Earl Grey tea leaves

140g butter (at room temperature)

1 extra large egg

Icing:

250g icing sugar

70ml orange juice

1 tsp orange zest

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180*C.

Grease and line two large baking trays.

Put the Sasko Cookie mix into a mixing bowl with the tea leaves and stir with a whisk to ensure that the leaves are well incorporated.

Add the butter and rub into the cookie mix with your hands until a bread-crumb-like consistency is formed.

Whisk the egg in a smaller mixing bowl.

Add the egg to the cookie mix and combine with a wooden spoon.

Remove tablespoons of the dough from the mix and roll into little balls (about the size of a R5 coin) and place them, 5cm apart, onto the lined baking trays. You should get about 35-40 cookies from the mixture.

Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.

(Allow to cool completely before icing.)

Mix the icing sugar, orange juice and zest together in a bowl and, using the back of a teaspoon, smear a small circle of the icing onto each biscuit. Allow the icing to set completely before storing in an airtight container.

Rooibos cookies dipped in white chocolate

Ingredients:

500g Sasko Cookie Mix

1 ½ Tbsp Rooibos/Chai Rooibos tea leaves

140g butter (at room temperature)

1 extra large egg

200g white chocolate

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180*C.

Grease and line two large baking trays.

Put the Sasko Cookie mix into a mixing bowl with the tea leaves and stir with a whisk to ensure that the leaves are well incorporated.

Add the butter and rub into the cookie mix with your hands until a bread-crumb-like consistency is formed.

Whisk the egg in a smaller mixing bowl.

Add the egg to the cookie mix and combine with a wooden spoon.

Remove tablespoons of the dough from the mix and roll into little balls (about the size of a R5 coin) and place them, 5cm apart, onto the lined baking trays. You should get about 35-40 cookies from the mixture.

Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.

(Allow to cool completely before dipping into the chocolate.)

Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a double boiler on low heat on top of the stove.

Dip half of the tops of each cookie into chocolate and place on a sheet of baking paper to dry.

Allow the chocolate to set completely before storing in an airtight container. (This will take a few hours.)

Jasmine tea biscuits with dark chocolate and goji berries

Ingredients:

500g Sasko Cookie Mix

1 ½ Tbsp Jasmine tea leaves

140g butter (at room temperature)

1 extra large egg

200g dark chocolate

50g goji berries

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180*C.

Grease and line two large baking trays.

Put the Sasko Cookie mix into a mixing bowl with the tea leaves and stir with a whisk to ensure that the leaves are well incorporated.

Add the butter and rub into the cookie mix with your hands until a bread-crumb-like consistency is formed.

Whisk the egg in a smaller mixing bowl.

Add the egg to the cookie mix and combine with a wooden spoon.

Remove tablespoons of the dough from the mix and roll into little balls (about the size of a R5 coin) and place them, 5cm apart, onto the lined baking trays. You should get about 35-40 cookies from the mixture.

Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.

(Allow to cool completely before dipping in the chocolate.)

Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a double boiler on low heat on top of the stove.

Dip half of the tops of each cookie into the melted chocolate, sprinkle over the goji berries and place on a sheet of baking paper to dry.

Allow the chocolate to set completely before storing in an airtight container. (This will take a few hours.)

Top Tips:

1.     If the tea leaves seem overly large simply pulse them a few times in a food processor until they are smaller in size.

2.     If you don’t have a double boiler you can use a heatproof bowl that fits snuggly on top of one of your pots – it needs to fit tightly as you don’t want any water from escaping steam to mix with the chocolate, as it will cause the chocolate to congeal. It’s also important that the water in the pot does not touch the bottom of the bowl as it could burn the chocolate.

3.     If you are baking all of the cookies at the same time make sure that you keep a good distance between the baking trays in the oven to ensure that there is even heat distribution.