Chunky Houjicha Cookies

As a person who is fueled with sugar, I have a special place in my heart (and tummy) for sweets. However, living in the countryside (which is awesome btw), it will probably take a lot of time and distance for me to get my sweet fix. Oh noooo. What to do?! Simple. This calls for a series of baking adventures with interns Mikie and Claire.

Harvesting season is over so we have more time to get lost in the kitchen – even more than usual. Opening our magical tea fridge at home, we wanted to try out more recipes with different powders and tea leaves available, so now we have made *drumroll please*…  Chunky Houjicha Cookies! For this recipe, we made use of our Houjicha Powder – with its sweet and roasted flavor to complement the chocolates and almonds!

So much goodness in every bite! Why not try the recipe below so you know what we are talking about?

How to make Houjicha Cookies

Houjicha Cookies

Ingredients

• 190g Cold Unsalted Butter
• 135g Granulated Sugar
• 135g Brown Sugar
• 100g Chopped Milk Chocolate
• 80g Chopped White Chocolate
• 60g Chopped Almonds
• 400g Flour
• 20g Houjicha Powder
• 10g Baking Powder
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 2 Large Eggs

 Instructions

1. In a large bowl, mix in the cold butter, brown sugar, and the granulated sugar. Try not to cream the mixture and just combine and break up the ingredients well. It should end up looking like coated butter chunks.
2. Add in the chopped white chocolate, milk chocolate, and almonds. You may also substitute the chopped chocolates with chocolate chips. Mix it until well combined.
3. Add the dry ingredients – houjicha powder, flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix it well until you achieve a crumby consistency.
4. Whisk two large eggs and pour the eggs into the large bowl. Combine well.
5. Using a weighing scale, measure your dough and make evenly sized cookie balls. We made ours at around 80-90 grams each so we can have more cookies! But you can also adjust it to your preference.
6. Freeze the dough balls and pop some in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 13 minutes whenever you want to have freshly baked cookies. The time will depend on the size of your cookies so just look after the cookies around the 12-minute mark and take it out when it looks done.
7. Transfer to a wire rack and let it cool completely before you dig in. :)

Some notes:

• If you don’t have a stand mixer like us, it’s fine to just use a wooden spoon to do the mixing. We found the hand mixer to be difficult, so I switched mid-way!
• Feel free to play with the amount and type of chocolate you use. We made a half-and-half of white and milk chocolate for some balance in sweetness. Using chocolate chips may be more convenient than chopping bars (unfortunately, chips are hard to find in Japan!).
• Try experimenting with different tea powders and see which one fits your taste. You’ll be surprised at how versatile the tea powders can be!

And that’s it, you guys! Hope you enjoy this recipe. While waiting for your cookies to cool, you may want to prepare some tea to go with your Chunky Houjicha Cookies. Stay tuned for our weekly recipe uploads!

-Intern Mikie

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