A BBQ + Black Sesame Butter Cookies

Today, we had a family BBQ at my auncle's (aunt + uncle's) house.

We also took the opportunity to belatedly celebrate my Uncle Geraldine's birthday, which had passed the week before.

But really, I think it was just an excuse to have ice cream cake.

Not that my uncle's birthday isn't something to celebrate, we had just never done it before.

When we were blowing out the candles on the cake, my uncle asked my aunt for a kiss.

This is what he got:

Aren't my Aunt Joe and Uncle Geraldine adorable?

I love my family.

I meant to take more pictures of the BBQ because my uncle is famous for his BBQ ribs (really, my auncles used to own a BBQ restaurant in Chelsea) but I forgot to bring my camera - story of my life! - so, no pictures.

What I did remember to bring though, was this:

When I found out we were gathering for a family party, I immediately ran to the nearest grocery store to buy ingredients so that I could experiment with some recipes I'd been working on. Rarely do I get the chance to foist test my culinary adventures on other people so when the chance presented itself, I grabbed it greedily.

I'd been working on a sesame cookie recipe for awhile and by awhile, I mean I'd made it once before, and though it tasted awesome -- which surprised me because who makes an edible cookie on the first try? I must be a culinary genius. -- it was a little too dense for my tastes.

This time around, I wanted to try lightening the dough by using a whole egg instead of just the yolk.

I was a little bit nervous about bringing an experimental batch of cookies to my family to taste because they're all restauranteers/chefs/foodie people so I knew they'd be a tough crowd to sell to. But, that means they're also the best crowd to use as my guinea pigs, right? Right.

As soon as I brought the cookies into the house, my cousin pounced on them, and ten minutes later, the cookies were almost gone.

A rousing, positive verdict I'd say.

Even my Uncle Wilhelmina, who is notoriously a "Just OK"-er, gave me two thumbs up.

Though he might've been drunk.

But I'll take it.

Black Sesame Butter Cookies
Makes 20 cookies

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons salted butter, preferably European-style butter
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons black sesame seeds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, cream butter and sugar.
3. Add in beaten egg and mix well.
4. Stir in vanilla and salt.
5. Pour in flour and combine.
6. Mix in black sesame seeds.
7. Using a small scoop, scoop dough onto cookie sheet and flatten with the back of a spoon.
8. Bake at 350ºF for 20 minutes.

Notes

• If you would like a denser, crumblier cookie, use only 1 egg yolk, discarding the egg white.
• I used Kerrygold Salted Butter (the gold wrapper).

Green Tea Cookies

I have a little story to tell you guys.

About a month ago, I was really excited to share a new recipe with you all.

So excited that I posted a photo on Instagram:


The recipe was done. Its yumminess was ready to be shared. I just needed some pretty photos to go along with the post.

But, for the life of me, I could not get these cookies to look green in my photos. They all ended up looking brown and lame. Not enticing at all.

I knew my photography skills weren't great, and I had a lot to learn, but still, it was getting absurd. I took hundreds of photos and deleted them all. Made batches and batches of these cookies because I kept eating them in my stressed out state.

In a determined attempt to get at least one useable photo, I spent hours on the internet, reading up on whatever I could about food photography, looking at other food blogs, and trying a bunch of different things.

Using a background color that will make the green pop:

Changing the white balance on my camera to get the yellowish-brown hues out of my photos:

Getting up close and personal with the greeness:

And then, before I knew it, four weeks had passed and I was still getting nowhere. I panicked, wondering how I let that happen.

Then I groaned at myself with frustration. Because: I was letting the pursuit of perfection defeat me again.

Anyone else familiar with this self-sabatoging enemy?

Sanity came back and I realized: Janice, people don't eat pictures. It doesn't matter how perfect the photos are. Just put the recipe up already!

So, here I am, in all my imperfect glory, sharing with you, a recipe for green tea cookies that I love.

I've made it for my family and I've made it for my friends, all of them love it too.

A note about this Green Tea Cookie recipe: it works best with a specific type of butter, European-style butter.

European-style butters have a butterfat content of at least 82% and it makes a marked difference in the taste. I've tested this recipe with regular American sweet cream butter and my testers (ahem, family) weren't fond of it at all.

You'll need butter, sugar, flour, salt, baking soda, matcha, vanilla extract, and an egg.

Also, lemon juice.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy.

It's always at this point in the cookie-making process that I wonder if I really need to make cookies. 'Cause I sure would love to eat that sugar-butter by the spoonful.

But, so far, I've been able to convince myself that scarfing down a whole bowl of butter and sugar would be bad for my health.

If you've also convinced yourself of that, continue and add an egg.

Beat until smooth and pretty. As opposed to smooth and ugly.

Add vanilla, salt, and baking soda, and mix well. Then stir in lemon juice (which is not pictured because I forgot to add it until the end).

Add flour + matcha.

Combine until just crumbly, you don't want to overmix.

Scoop batter onto a lined cookie sheet using a small scoop.

Or, on a whim, use a mini-muffin pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

If your cookies are puffy when you take them out of the oven (picture left) and you want to deflate them, slam your cookie sheet down on your counter (picture right) before letting them cool.

Green Tea Cookies

Makes 36

Ingredients

• 1 stick unsalted butter = ½ cup = 8 tablespoons
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon lemon juice
• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• 5 teaspoons matcha

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Or alternately, line a mini-muffin pan with mini cupcake liners.
3. In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Try not to eat this mixture with a spoon.
5. Add in egg and beat until well-combined.
6. Admire the pretty yellow color.
7. Add vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Incorporate well. Stir in lemon juice.
8. Mix in the flour + matcha until just combined. Be careful not to overmix, dough should be a little crumbly.
9. Scoop cookie dough onto baking sheet or mini-muffin pan with a small cookie scoop.
10. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Notes
Butter should be at least 82% butterfat. European-style butters work best.