Matcha Cream Cheese Cookies

I had made green tea cookies before and, inspired by this amazing blogger, I decided I was going to make some this weekend. I normally just modify a sugar cookie or shortbread recipe to make the green tea ones but I inspected my fridge and I found a bar of cream cheese lying around, 2 weeks shy of its expiration date. So, off to google I went and found several recipes for cream cheese cookies. I chose one and modified it a bit, ending up with half a batch of plain vanilla cookies and half a batch of green tea or matcha flavored ones.

Cream Cheese Cookies (basic recipe)

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 3 oz (or about 85 grams) cream cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 1/4 cups flour

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Cream butter, cheese, sugar, salt, vanilla and egg yolk until light and fluffy.

3. Add flour in 3 batches, mixing after each addition.

4. Form dough into 1 inch balls with your hands.

5. Take a glass, grease the bottom and dip in sugar. Use glass to flatten dough balls, dipping in sugar after each use.

6. Bake for 12 minutes until bottom is slightly brown.

7. Cool on cookie rack.

For the matcha version, I added 3 tsp. of matcha powder to half the batter. I also used black sesame seeds to top the cookies, more for decoration than anything else. Very zen looking, don't you think?