Green Tea Shortbread Wedges

Prep: 20 Mins         Bake: 25-30 mins

Stand: 5 mins          Oven: 325 F

Makes: 8-12 Wedges

Today, We bake!

I think of shortbread as a hybrid mix of a cookie and bread. It takes longer to bake than a cookie but faster than bread. You can say it's the best crumbly version of both worlds. 

Recipe: 

I got the recipe from the Ultimate Cookie Book. Here's the slightly modified version of it:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3 Tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons matcha (This is just a suggestion. It really depends on how you want it to taste.)

1/2 cup cold butter 

The Dirty Work:

1) Preheat oven to 325 F. In a medium bowl or stand in mixer, mix together flour, sugar, and matcha. Add in the butter and mix together until it looks like fine crumbs. If it is not clinging together, you can add in more butter OR a bit of water. Knead together into a ball until it's smooth.

2) On a cookie sheet, roll out the dough to desired shape and thickness. Crimp the edges to make scallops (either with your fingers or the edge a the cookie cutter). Using a knife, cut the circle into 8-12 wedges without separating them. To add a bit of decor, you can use the cookie cutter to make an imprint on each wedge. 

3) Bake for 25-30 minutes, or just until the bottom is brown. Remove from the oven and let it set for 5 minutes, and while warm, recut the wedges. 

Tips:

 

I couldn't find matcha in the one asian grocery store I checked at, so Johnny and I bought the next best think: The powdered drink version.

I was taking a risk with this one, but I figured the added sugar in this drink it will taste better. 

(Ehhh, what do you mean that's not how it works?)  

The recipe called for cold butter, but for once I only had room temperature butter. The reason they asked for cold butter is so the ingredients will stick together, but if they don't stick together you simply have to add more butter or a bit of water.

When using the mixer, set it to low.

After a few minutes, the mixture is suppose to look like fine crumbs.

Never trust the suggest bake time in the book. When baking shortbread, just check to see when it turns brown in the edges. that's when you know it's done.

And done! 

Question is, for something that only has four ingredients, why are there so many dishes in the sink? 

Chatime

So after going to Chatime I've learned a couple of new things:

1) Matcha means finely milled green tea powder.

2) There's no such thing as being too full for bubble tea.

3) There's more to life than drinking taro bubble tea all the time. (In case anyone was wondering, I'm Taro and Johnny's Mango.)

My friends and I dropped by Chatime, which is just right off of Bay and Dundas, since dinner didn't seem to suffice our hungry appetites (first world problems). Chatime had a continuous flow of customers that night, although people mostly went in and out as soon as they had their drinks, but that's probably because they're a small establishment and only had a handful of tables and chairs (most of which was taken up by large chatty groups).

Chatime: Good Tea Good Time

The design of the place is modern, with white walls and purple accents, and is brightly lit. My only concern, if this counts as a concern, was that the bathroom didn't have a door that closed on it's own, and if left open, you have a full view of the toilets. Not very appetizing. The lock in the women's washroom was broken as well.

They also had random quotes about tea on the walls, which I didn't get a chance to read since I was distracted.

I ordered the Matcha Red Bean Smoothie (around $5), since the green picture on the menu caught my eye. I did wonder why it wasn't red though, since it had red beans in it, but this was before I found out what matcha was. Anyway, the cool thing about Chatime is that you can choose how much sugar you want in your bubble tea, and trying to be health conscious, I said I wanted 50%.

If you read the side of the cup it has a very amusing Engrish quote: 'We pick sweetness of dawn in order to offer you the best tea everyday.'

Sounds deep.

The picture of the Matcha Red Bean Smoothie must have been very appealing, because three of us ordered the same thing coincidentally. If you look closely we chose different sugar levels in our cups: from less-sugar to half-sugar to slight-sugar. I don't really know what the difference between less sugar and slight sugar is, it sounds the same to me. My friend who ordered less-sugar definitely had more sugar than my friend who ordered slight-sugar.

You don't have to worry too much about the vocabulary though, since the person at the counter will just ask you what percentage of sugar you want.

Overall, Chatime is probably the healthiest place you can go for bubble tea. The Matcha Red Bean Smoothie wasn't overly sweet and definitely did not taste like they used powder (too much of it anyway), and the red bean was just enough to make it sweet on its own without needing too much sugar. In fact, it felt like I was chugging down a vegetable smoothie if anything.

And although three of us got the same flavour, they definitely have a large amount of flavours to choose from.

_________________________

I mentioned in the beginning that there's no such thing as being too full for bubble tea. That's because right before, we went to the Pickle Barrel at Yonge and Dundas. Originally we were going to go to Spring Rolls, which is right above the Pickle Barrel, but the hostess was snobby and told me that she didn't room for us (there were about 15 people with us). Pickle Barrel was nice and seated us within 15 minutes.

Anyway, I'm not going to write a review for the Pickle Barrel because it's one of those restaurants that's franchised and have a step by step process for the way their food is prepared. Their food is just ok and satisfying enough. I appreciate how they have a large selection though.

I don't remember what these dishes are called. I'll make up names.

The Cheesy Pickle Burger

Mini Pickled Delights

The Big Pickle Breakfast

The Tastes Just Like Meat Vegetarian Pickle Burger