What is Christmas without Christmas cookies? Thinking back, it’s probably been at least 2-3 years since my partner and I have made cookies at Christmas. Or cookies ever, really. Since we are in a new city this year and won’t be enjoying cookies with family, we decided to go ahead and make our own. He listed off all the cookies he wanted. Sugar cookies, gingerbread men, shortbread… he would have gone on but I reminded him there is only two of us! And so we decided to start with sugar cookies.
I asked my mom for her sugar cookie recipe, the kind she makes every single Christmas. Her cookies are famous and she hands them out to (almost) literally everyone through the holidays. Even the mailman and car mechanic get some. I decided to use her recipe, but tweak the ingredients a little bit.
I didn’t want to use sprinkles or icing, but I did want my cookies to look festive. For the record, there is never a need for food colouring! Nature provides us with healthy, nutrient-rich food colourings. I decided on matcha green tea powder for green cookies, and freeze dried pomegranate seeds for red bits. I made some green cookies, some regular cookies with red bits, and some cookies with both! The following recipe will provide you with instructions on how to make all three types from the one recipe. You can change the recipe if you want only matcha cookies, only pomegranate cookies, or only cookies with both matcha and pomegranate. It’s up to you! I liked having all three kinds.
The amount of matcha I used was just enough to give the dough a nice, mild green colour. The taste of matcha did not really come through. If you want a stronger taste or deeper colour, use more matcha. If you want your pomegranate cookies to be fully red, you can add a bit of beet juice or beet powder to the dough (though it may turn out pinkish.. great for Valentine’s Day!).
These cookies are healthier than your average cookie, but they do contain sugar and they are still cookies. Keep this in mind before you consider eating these cookies for breakfast! Otherwise, enjoy and spread the love. I bet your hard-working mailman would love a few of these!
Festive Matcha & Pomegranate Sugar Cookies
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Author: Nicole
Category: Dessert
Makes: 4 dozen
Ingredients
- 1 cup organic pastured butter (preferably homemade)
- 1 cup organic cane sugar
- 1 pastured egg
- 2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
- 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (use this one if you are gluten-free)
- 1 teaspoon matcha green tea powder
- ¼ cup freeze dried pomegranate seeds
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400F and grease two baking sheets with coconut oil. I literally just dipped my fingertips into melted coconut oil and rubbed the oil onto the pan (each dip covered half a pan).
- Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg.
- Add the flour, baking powder, and vanilla powder. Mix and knead until it becomes doughy.
- Divide the dough into two separate bowls. In one bowl, add in the matcha powder. Mix it into the dough with your hands. If you mix it less, it will have a really cool swirly appearance. If you want your cookies uniformly green, mix it longer.
- Into the second bowl, add your freeze dried pomegranates. Mix with your hands until the seeds are evenly distributed.
- Take the green dough, and roll it out to about ⅛” thick on a floured surface. Cut out cookies with your desired shapes, and repeat once more. Save any dough left over after those two rollings. Place the cookies on the baking sheet, remembering to leave some room for the cookies to spread.
- Repeat with the pomegranate dough, saving any dough leftover after two rollings. Mix whatever green and red dough is left together, so you have green dough with red seeds. Roll out dough and cut out cookies, repeating until you have no usable dough left.
- Place in the oven for 4 minutes. Switch cookie sheets for even baking (bottom one goes on top, and vice versa). Bake another 2-3 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let cool before removing from the sheet.
Notes & Substitutions
gluten-free // gluten-free all-purpose flour
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