Today I'm going to share a Christmas cookie recipe with a Japanese twist! Enjoy these adorable Christmas Tree Cookies flavoured with matcha powder! A delicious treat for you and your family, they make the perfect gift too!
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Christmas in Japan
Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan. People love to decorate their houses, buy presents and eat Kentucky Fried Chicken on December 24th (yes, 24th not 25th!), but other than that, Christmas is a regular day!
That's why you might find that there are very few Japanese Christmas recipes. Japanese families mainly eat chicken and Christmas cake, that's pretty much it! And Christmas cake might not be the kind of cake you're thinking... It's a light and fluffy strawberry shortcake (check out my strawberry shortcake recipe!). Very different to Christmas cakes in England at least.
What is Matcha?
As I'm using matcha in this recipe, I'll tell you a little bit about it. Matcha is a type of green tea made by grinding young green tea leaves into a fine, bright green powder.
Because of it getting more popular outside of Japan, matcha powder has become more accessible. You can probably even find it in well stocked supermarkets. If not you can check specialist tea stores or asian supermarkets, it’s easy to order online as well.
I recommend this Tsujiri Ichi Matcha Powder on Dokodemo (Affiliate link), it's delicious and perfect for baking and drinking!
Because of matcha's bright green colour, it's great for Christmas recipes! You can add colour to your baking naturally without using food coloring, and it tastes great too. Win win!
Butter Cookies
This recipe is a butter cookie with matcha flavour. Butter cookies are rich and luxurious and just perfect for Christmas! Because of the amount of butter and sugar in butter cookies, the texture is crisp and a bit crumbly like a shortbread.
Butter cookies are often piped into different shapes. For this recipe you will need a piping bag and a star shaped nozzle. The dough might be a bit stiff, you can use a bit more milk to make it soft enough to pipe. I get worried about adding too much milk so I just run the piping bag under warm water if the dough is too stiff.
Make sure you use soft butter when making this cookies. Cold hard butter is gonna give you a hard time and it will be impossible to pipe. The butter will harden again when you put the cookies in the fridge to chill.
I recommend drawing a Christmas Tree template on a piece of paper and then placing it under the baking parchment when you're piping. This will make it easier to make beautiful cookies and they will be uniform too.
If you like, you can download my template here for free!
If you love matcha...
We have more delicious matcha sweets recipes, check them out!
Step by step recipe
Matcha Christmas Tree Cookies
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 20 Cookies 1x
Description
How to make festive, buttery Matcha Christmas Tree Cookies
Ingredients
- 110g Unsalted Butter (softened)
- 60g Granulated Sugar
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1 Egg Yolk
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 140g Weak flour
- 1 ½ tsp Matcha Powder
- 1-2 tsp Milk
- 50g Milk Chocolate (for melting)
- Decorative Stars (optional)
- 2 tbsp Powdered Sugar (for icing and dusting)
Instructions
- In a bowl, add 110g soft butter (room temperature or warmer) with 60g granulated sugar and a pinch of salt. Mix together until creamy.
- Add 1 egg yolk and ½ tsp vanilla extract and mix.
- In a separate bowl, measure out 149g weak flour (all purpose works too) and 1 ½ tsp matcha powder.
- Mix them together until the matcha is incorporated into the flour and then sift it into the butter mixture.
- Mix well and add 1-2 tsp of milk to loosen the mixture, it should be quite soft.
- Put the mixture into a strong piping bag with a star nozzle.
- Line two baking sheets with baking paper and place the tree template underneath. You can download my template or you can draw your own on a separate piece of paper.
- Start piping the dough onto the baking paper. (If the mixture is too stiff, run it the piping bag under warm water to soften it more) For piping, I start at the bottom of the tree and top of the trunk. Make the trunk shape first and then from the top of the trunk, pipe the mixture from side to side until you get to the top of the tree. This will make a nice star shape at the top too if you don't have star decorations.
- Repeat until you've used all the dough. This should be enough for about 20 cookies.
- Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes before baking.
- Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 170°C (340°F) for 12-15 minutes. I usually put one tray in at a time on the middle shelf so that they cook evenly.
- Once baked, let them cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to allow them to cool completely.
Decorating
- Decoration is up to you, but I used chocolate to coat the tree trunks. I melted 50g of milk chocolate using a double boiler and used a spoon to cover the trunk.
- To stick on decorations, use 1 tbsp of powdered sugar with a tiny drizzle of milk and mix until pasty. This acts as a tasty glue. If it's too runny, add more powdered sugar.
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar for a snowy effect.
- Store in an airtight container and consume within a week.
Notes
If the pastry is too hard to pipe add a little more milk or if it's already in the piping bag, run it under warm water to soften it.
Chilling is important, don't skip the step if you want a crisp shape.
Make sure the cookies are completely cooled before decorating.
This recipe makes 20 cookies.
Prep time includes chilling.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Sweets
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Japanese
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