Oolong crispy cookies

I have been meaning to make tea cookies, tea dust and all, for a while now.   To pair tea leaves with butter, I prefer something astringent and Oolong comes close. It was a bit of work, grinding Chinese tealeaves but the end result was worth it.

My coffee grinder had a great workout because it was designed for heavier beans. The light tea leaves were lifted up above the blades and only yielded 30% dust. I was worried about the cookie having a gritty texture from the tea dust but it seems all worked well. If tea dust is not your cup of eh, tea, in cookies, try matcha  powder instead. It takes the mickey out of the processing and is less messy.

Makes 30-40 cookies, depending on the thickness of the dough.

Ingredient
50g fine sugar
75g unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
1 tsp oolong tea dust ( I ground it in a coffee grinder )
2 tablespoon of beaten egg
125g plain flour + 1 tbsp baking powder ( ½ tbsp recommended )
at least 4 sheets of baking sheets

Method :

Beat butter, sugar, salt and tea dust until light and creamy. 

Whisk in beaten egg .

Add flour and mix  until just combined.
Roll dough between 2 sheets of non-stick baking paper to 2mm thick. I use a pot with a flat base to first flatten the dough before using the rolling pin.

Freeze dough until firm, 20 minutes.
Using a cookie cutter, cut out cookies from the frozen sheet of dough.  Gathering the scraps, flatten and freeze it before repeating the step. 

Space cookies 1 cm apart on a lined baking tray.
Preheat oven to 180C.
Baked until golden, 13 minutes.
Remove cookie from the oven. Cool completely before using a spatula to lift them off the liner.

Keep the cooled cookies in an airtight container.