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Chewy Earl Grey Sugar Cookies
![Chewy Earl Grey Sugar Cookies](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/09/23/dining/ya-chewy-earl-grey-sugar-cookies/merlin_194732559_955be33c-82ea-4611-b9a3-66f3cfaa37f8-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1¼cups/250 grams granulated sugar
- 14tablespoons/198 grams unsalted butter
- 1tablespoon finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves, from about 3 tea bags
- ½cup/100 grams light brown sugar
- ¾teaspoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
- ½teaspoon finely grated orange zest
- 1large egg
- 2teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2½cups/320 grams all-purpose flour
- ½teaspoon baking powder
- ½teaspoon baking soda
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 350 degrees and line two half-sheet pans with parchment paper. Put ½ cup/100 grams granulated sugar in a small bowl or shallow dish and set aside.
- Step 2
Combine the butter and tea leaves in a small saucepan set over medium heat. Melt the butter, stirring occasionally, until it just begins to sizzle around the edges. Remove from the heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
- Step 3
Add the tea butter to a large bowl, then add brown sugar, salt, orange zest and remaining ¾ cup/150 grams granulated sugar. Use an electric mixer on medium speed or a whisk to combine for about 30 seconds; the mixture will be grainy and separated. Add the egg and vanilla, and mix until combined and smooth, about 30 seconds.
- Step 4
Add the flour, baking powder and baking soda to the bowl, and mix on low speed or with a rubber spatula until just combined. Use the spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure the dough is evenly mixed.
- Step 5
Use a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop to portion the cookies. Alternatively, measure 2 tablespoons of dough with a measuring spoon. Roll each dough ball in the reserved granulated sugar, then place on the baking sheets 2 inches apart.
- Step 6
Bake the cookies until set, light golden around and crackled on top, 16 to 19 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back in the oven halfway through the baking time. Remove cookies from the oven and let cool on the baking sheets. Store extra cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or for a few weeks in the freezer.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
i too was confused when recipes started specifying the brand of kosher salt--subsequent investigation uncovered the different methods that diamond and morton use for creating their kosher salt. diamond's flakes are larger as a result, which means that more of morton's smaller crystals can fit in a measured amt, hence making morton's "saltier." general rule of thumb is to use half the amt of morton's for diamond kosher salt. hope that helps!
Just buy a cheap scale. I resisted for a long time and when I finally gave it it revolutionized everything
Love this recipe! It was delicious, wouldn’t make any changes. I subbed English Breakfast and lemon zest instead of Earl Grey and orange zest (because of what I had on hand), and it worked well. This recipe would also probably be yummy with Chai. You really don’t need a 1/2 cup of sugar for rolling the cookies, more like 1/4 cup. Overall, a great cookie!
I put a dash of cardamom in the rolling sugar - perfection! These cookies are a winner!
Delicious! I used Chinese breakfast tea because it was what we had, and added roughly chopped dark chocolate because I have no self control.
The Escali model F115 scale was the best kitchen equipment purchase I’ve made. It’s wafer thin and takes up almost no space. Everything I bake now comes out perfectly— including these amazing cookies. Can’t wait to try them with clementine zest this winter.
The best cookie, hands down. I agree with others’ recommendation to double the zest. I found 16 min way too long. For a more tender cookie (less hard/crunchy) do 12 min.
Hear me out: Make these with 8 tablespoons of butter and 6 tablespoons of Crisco. Steep the tea in the butter and add the Crisco with the other wet ingredients. They're much chewier if you replace some of the butter with Crisco. I know it's not a fashionable ingredient, but they're tastier.
Very nice. Like sugar cookies, only interesting.
The cookie dough seemed too crumbly so I added a splash of milk, just enough to slightly bind the dough so I could scoop it. The cookies came out delicious, soft, and chewy. I love Earl Grey tea so I knew I would love these cookies!
I don't care much for Earl Gray tea and didn't want to waste my money on a whole box of it for this recipe so I tried Mint Medley tea. With the addition of the chocolate shards recommended, it is a heavenly combination. I think Peppermint tea would work too.
It has to do with the shape and weight of the actual crystal—with morton's being denser and thus heavier, so the same amount of morton's will be about twice as salty tasting as the same amount of diamond crystal.
Diamond Kosher is listed not as a requirement, but as a detail, to record which type of salt the author used to create this recipe. As others have explained, Morton is roughly 2x as salty as Diamond (so use half of the listed amount if Morton's is what you have on hand; same goes for fine sea salt and table salt - use half of the listed amount for Diamond).
These are fantastic, both the flavor and the texture. I used a gluten free "cup for cup" flour blend and zest from a blood orange. Delicious.
The tea out of teabags is ground finely enough- open them up and mix right into the butter as it melts.
I made two batches of these, one using earl grey as flavoring and the other using chai. Both were delicious (especially paired with a glass of cold milk.) I would recommend anyone who is not a fan of earl gray to try this recipe out with their favorite tea!
302g Ap Flour When Taking Out 2tbsp
These cookies are absolutely amazing but I had to get rid of a star because I found that they got very hard and stale extremely quickly.
Made a gluten-free, dairy-free version of these with veggie sticks and Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 All-Purpose Flour for my wedding rehearsal dinner (for attendees with diet restrictions). They turned out so chewy and delicious everyone wanted the recipe!
I made these with dark brown sugar instead of light and with the zest of 1 orange (I didn't measure it) and they're so good. I made ~2 5/8 tablespoon balls (that's the cookie scoop I have) and I baked them for a total of 18 minutes. The cookies that spent 10 minutes on the top rack are a little harder than I'd like but the ones who spent those 10 minutes on the bottom rack are perfect.
Used less sugar than the recipe called for as I did not have any brown sugar on hand. Still came out a bit too sweet for my liking, but was still a fantastic cookie. Used lemon zest in place of the orange and I like the idea of another reader’s suggestion of cardamom in the rolling sugar. Plan to try this next time.
Really, really, good. The Earl Grey flavor adds complexity but doesn't taste exactly like a cup of tea. I used a large saucepan to melt the butter so I could use it as a mixing bowl by adding the other ingredients. One less item to clean. As written, this makes a very large cookie. Mine were about 1.5 TSBP and I used a heaping meaning tablespoon to help scoop into my hand, then rolled them into spheres.
Made these yesterday with GF flour blend and they turned out great!
Try with lemon zest in place of the tea, lemon paste for the vanilla, and add the lemon crumbles.
these came out great. I halved the recipe (butter and Flour and vanilla and baking soda and powder) and only used 0.5 cups of each sugar type. Only had lemon zest. Made cookies 35-40 g and cooked for 12 minutes. better if leave dough in fridge for awhile. I used Mortar and pestle to grind the earl grey tea and used full TBSP for half recipe. These are a huge hit!.
Wonderful flavor, but do not over bake. I think 12-13 minutes worked better for chewy cookies. Liked the ideas of doubling the zest, adding cardamom or using another tea.
These are really tasty cookies, with an interesting texture that’s somewhere between soft and crunchy. My only disappointment is that the earl grey flavour was barely there, very very subtle. May be due to the specific tea that I used, though.
The flavor was good, but the cookies were much too dry. I took them out at 14 minutes, but I would not cool the cookies on the sheets next time, but take them off immediately.
Made these yesterday and they were a huge hit in my household. Used blood orange zest. Added cardamom to the rolling sugar as someone else suggested. I used a 2 tbsp cookie scoop and baked the cookies for 15 min. Any more and they would’ve been over baked. The cookies harden a bit the next day btw!
Easy and tasty! Will make again for sure, perhaps reducing the amount of granulated sugar by 25g.
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