Sparkly matcha sugar cookies
And the gift of music.
Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary.
Give the gift of Tenderheart these holidays - signed copies are available in-store at Books are Magic and Kitchen, Arts and Letters in New York. Available online here or here.
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A small but mighty ask to round out the year - if you haven’t done so already, leave Tenderheart a review on Amazon (whether you purchased it there or not). It’s a super boring request, but more reviews helps others find my book. Please and thank you.
Welcome to my last dispatch for 2023. I wanted to thank each and every one of you for being here this year. It’s been a big year for me and for vegetables. Thank you for not only supporting To Vegetables, with Love, but for showing up for me in all the ways. In our over-connected, over-informationed world, thank you for trusting me and my recipes. There are a lot of reasons I do the things that I do, in the ways that I do them, but most of all, I just want my recipes and my books to make your life easier and more delicious. And I want you all to realize how important all our small daily moments around food are…
What’s in store for 2024? I’ve been quietly working on something deeply fulfilling for all of 2023. You will hear more about this soon but the photo below is a teaser. I hope I’ll be sharing a meal with some of you soon.
I lied last week when I said I wouldn’t be sharing a recipe this week. This was not planned, but a few people reached out about the sparkly matcha cookie which was a part of my holiday cookie box this year, so I decided to share the recipe. It’s a fairly conventional sugar cookie, but super earthy with a slight tang from the matcha.
Finally, my gift to you is something I have been promising FOREVER. My playlist, with songs that I’ve used in my recipe reels on Instagram over the past year or so. This is the music of my life, lots of new wave, lots of eighties pop. Unwittingly, the songs have become a point of connection - while on the Tenderheart book tour, it was often a topic that came up during talks, and even during media interviews. Anyway, here is the mixtape I made just for you. Enjoy.
Wishing a happy holiday season to you all.
Rest and eat well, With love, Hetty xx
THIS WEEK’S RECIPE
Sparkly matcha sugar cookie
© Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love
Makes 36-38 cookies
227g (1 cup/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
100g (1/2 cup) white sugar
240g (2 cups) plain / all-purpose flour (I used Cup4Cup Gluten free flour)
½ dteaspoon salt
6 teaspoons matcha powder
1 egg / 1 flax egg (to make flax egg, mix 1 tbsp ground flax seeds with 3 tbsp water)
2 tsp vanilla extract
To decorate
sparkling sugar
Place the softened butter and sugar into a large bowl and whisk (I use a hand whisk) until well combined. Add the egg or flax egg and the vanilla and whisk again to combine. It may look lumpy, that is fine. (You can use a stand mixer if you prefer)
In another bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and matcha powder until well combined.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold together until combined and you cannot see any flecks of flour. I like to use my hands to do this.
Divide the dough into 2 and place each between two sheets of baking parchment paper. Roll each dough out until it’s about 1/4-inch / 5-6mm thick and then place in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours but preferably overnight (I usually just stack them and place them onto a baking sheet to keep them flat in the fridge).
Preheat oven to 180˚c / 350˚f.
Using a round or shaped cookie cutter that is about 5cm / 2-inch in size, cut out shapes. Re-roll the dough scraps and cut out more shapes until you have used up all the dough. Keep the dough chilled at all times - I keep the cut out shapes in the fridge until it is their turn to bake.
Arrange the cookie dough onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet, leaving 1-inch/2-3cm between each cookie (they don’t expand much). Working with one sheet at a time, place into the oven and bake until you just see the edges turn golden, 10-11 minutes. Remove from the oven and while still hot, sprinkle over the sparkling sugar (if you don’t sprinkle them on while still hot, they won’t stick; alternatively, you can sprinkle them on before you bake)
Continue baking the remaining cookies.
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🥦 My cookbook, Tenderheart is for cooking vegetables, all year round. Pick up your copy here. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free adaptable.
HNY! And thank you for all the AMAZING content!
Happy holidays Hetty! Thank you for a delicious year 💗