I am a tea monster. Anyone who knows me will acknowledge that I am rarely without a cup of tea in hand! Maxi is a massive fan of shortbread so we decided to experiment and produce a tea-flavoured shortbread and wow, it was a HUGE hit and so simple. Everyone in the family preferred our tea shortbread over the plain shortbread cookies and they make the perfect afternoon tea accompaniment.

Shortbread is a great biscuit to bake with kids. It only has four ingredients and is really forgiving, plus kids tend to love the taste too. Our shortbread recipe is probably the same as everyone else’s and I think could have been originally from the Bero book once upon a time, but has been handwritten in my recipe book for as long as I can remember and is the same one my mum made with me as a child.

Tea flavoured Shortbread Recipe

Ingredients:

125g/4oz butter (we have always used salted, but you can use unsalted butter and just add a pinch of salt)
50g/2oz caster sugar
175g/6oz plain flour (all purpose flour)
1 tbsp milk
Strong Brewed Tea of Choice (we used a tea bag here, but tea leaves are more adjustable)

Instructions to make tea shortbread:

Preheat oven 180’C/Gas mark 4.

Rub butter, caster sugar and flour together in a big bowl until it looks like breadcrumbs, I used to call this tickling with the boys. Now we just add it all to the food processor and pulse it.

Top Tip. Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies are a delicious twist and the bergamot adds a distint flavour, but you need to make the tea brew much stronger than you think to get the flavor into the shortbread which is why I recomend Earl Grey Tea Leaves. Do not brew for longer than 5 minutes or the tea will be bitter.

Heat a small cup of milk and add the teabag and allow to steep for 4 minutes.

Add a tablespoon of milk to your bread crumbs mixture and knead for a minute or two until it forms a smooth ball of dough. Cover with clingfilm and pop in the fridge for half an hour this helps the dough keep its shape when cooking (room temperature dough is much harder to cut and will lose any shape on baking).

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and roll out the dough until it’s 1cm thick. Cut out biscuit shapes using a biscuit cutter.

Reshape the scraps and cut more shapes. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet and prick with a fork. We actually stamped with a star-shaped cookie cutter to make them more festive.

Bake for 15 minutes before placing on to a wire rack to cool.

You can store them in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Personally I think green tea is too delicate for this, but matcha is amazing and you can just add the powder direct to the receipe.