Browned Butter Earl Grey Cookies

A few years back I shared a series of drink recipes for the holiday season.

This year, I thought I'd do something similar by trying my hand at some new cookie recipes throughout the month of December. My goal is to try at least two more new cookie recipes before heading back to Thailand in January.

They cookies are a type of shortbread, so they aren't super sweet. To be honest, I couldn't really taste any of the tea, but the flavors of cardamom, vanilla, and orange zest were incredible together.

In the future, I might add a few more spices, such as cloves or nutmeg.

This isn't exactly a quick and simple recipe, but I was pleased with how the cookies turned out.

Here's the recipe:

Browned Butter Earl Grey Cookies

Ingredients

For the Shortbread Cookies:

• 1 tablespoon loose leaf earl grey tea
• 1 cup unsalted butter softened and divided (227g)
• ½ vanilla bean seeds scraped or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
• ½ cup powdered sugar (60g)
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1¾ cups all-purpose flour (210g)
• ¼ cup cornstarch (40g)

For the Glaze:

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• zest of 1 orange
• 1 tablespoon warm milk
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter melted
• 1 pinch ground cardamom

Instructions

For the Shortbread Cookies:

1. In a small spice grinder, blitz the tea leaves until finely chopped. Set aside.
2. In a small saucepan, melt ½ cup of butter over medium-high heat. Continue cooking until the butter foams and the milk solids turn deep golden brown in color, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl. Stir in the vanilla, cardamom, and tea leaves.
3. Place the butter mixture in the fridge, stirring every 15 minutes, until smooth and spreadable, about 45 minutes. (You can also do this ahead of time and leave it covered at room temperature overnight.)
4. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cooled browned butter mixture, remaining ½ cup softened butter, sugar, egg yolk, and salt. Beat on medium speed just until creamy and combined, about 1 minute. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add in the flour and cornstarch, mixing just until combined. Stop and scrape down the bowl occasionally during mixing. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into a disk. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
5. Lightly flour the chilled dough and roll between two sheets of parchment paper to ¼-thickness. Chill for another hour or until firm.
6. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
7. Cut into desired 2-inch shape and place on the baking sheet 1-inch apart.
8. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the bottoms start to brown. Let the cookies cool completely on the pan.

For the Glaze:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, orange zest, milk, butter, and cardamom until smooth. 
2. Dip half of each cookie in the glaze place on parchment paper or drizzle the glaze over the cookies and set aside to dry. Let the glaze fully dry before serving. Cookies can be stored in single layers with parchment between them in an airtight container for up to a week.