Making Cocoa/ Kinako/ Macha/ Ryokucha/ Butter cookies and Shortbread.
Background
Cookies may be suitable for potluck party. So we decided to make various kinds of cookies, including Japanese flavors like macha and kinako (soy bean flour). We will give them to our friends and find out which cookie is the most popular among them.
Designs of cookies
The cookie designs are the following:
from the upper center, clockwise in the above picture,
and
- Butter cookie (the right in the above pic)
Questions
- Can we make cookies, following the protocol in cookpad?
Materials
Below are the materials needed to carry out this cookie cooking.
Cocoa cookie (15 pieces)
| Ingredients | Gram |
|---|---|
| Flour | 100 g |
| Milk cocoa (sweetened) | 30 g |
| Sugar | 15-20 g |
| Olive oil | 40 g |
| butter (if necessary) | as you like |
| Sugar (for coating around the cookie) | a little |
Kinako (soy bean flour) cookie (20 pieces)
| Ingredients | Gram |
|---|---|
| Flour | 60 g |
| Kinako | 15 g |
| Sugar | 20 g |
| Milk | half a table spoon |
| butter | 50g |
Macha cookie (35 pieces)
| Ingredients | Gram |
|---|---|
| Flour | 140 g |
| Macha | 15 g |
| Sugar | 70 g |
| Salt | a little |
| butter | 100g |
Shortbread (10 pieces)
| Ingredients | Gram |
|---|---|
| Flour | 140 g |
| Macha | 15 g |
| Sugar | 70 g |
| Salt | a little |
| butter | 100g |
Ryokucha (green tea) cookie
Replace Macha with Ryokucha.
Butter cookie (30 pieces)
| Ingredients | Gram |
|---|---|
| Flour | 150 g |
| Egg yolk | one |
| Sugar | 60 g |
| butter | 100g |
Setup
Cocoa cookie
The reference, Japanese version of the recipe is available here.
1) Weigh everything (except olive oil).
2) Sift flour and cocoa together.
3) Mix things already weighed together with a spatula.
4) Weigh olive oil.
5) Pour it into the mixture. Mix it well.
6) If the dough is still dry and crumbly, add a little butter to make it smooth (until you can make a mass).
Butter should be softened by a microwave before added.
7) Put the dough into a ziplock and make it a bar. (They rise during baking so the diameter of the bar (corresponds with that of cookies) doesn't have to be large.)
8) Put it in a freezer until it gets solid (but not too hard to be cut with a knife).
9) Preheat the oven at 335 degrees.
10) Take it out from the freezer and cut it with a knife into pieces.
11) Bake cookies at 335 degrees for 15min.
Placing 2 or 3 layers of aluminium foil below the wax paper (cooking paper) is good for preventing from burning the bottoms of cookies.
12) Take them out and cool them down.
Kinako (soy bean flour) cookie
The reference, Japanese version of the recipe is available here.
1) Microwave butter until it gets softened and creamy.
2) Sift flour and kinako together.
3) Mix butter and sugar with a spatula.
4) Add milk and mix well.
5) Add 2) into the mixture and mix it, taking care not to make it sticky.
6) Make a mass. Put it on a plastic wrap.
7) Keep the dough in a fridge for an hour.
8) Take a little amounts from the dough and make them a small ball.
(They rise during baking so balls doesn't have to be large.)
7) Bake balls at 335 degrees for 20-40min till the insides are properly cooked.
Placing 2 or 3 layers of aluminium foil below the wax paper (cooking paper) is good for preventing from burning the bottoms of cookies.
Macha cookie
The reference, Japanese version of the recipe is available here.
1) Microwave butter until it gets softened and creamy.
2) Sift flour, macha and salt together.
3) Mix butter and sugar well with a whisk.
4) Add 2) into 3) and mix with a spatula, taking care not to make it sticky.
5) Make a mass. Divide it into 2 or 3.
6) Put one dough and make a bar (square or round, both is okay). (They rise during baking so the diameter of the bar (corresponds with that of cookies) doesn't have to be large.)
7) Put the doughs in a freezer so that it gets solid for 30min - 1hr.
8) Cut the bar. If it is too hard and difficult to cut, wait until it gets soft enough.
9) Bake cookies at 335 degrees for 15min.
Make sure to leave sufficient space between cookies so that they won't connect together when they rises during baking. Especially this cookie gets much bigger!
The burnt part will definitely lose the smell of macha. So you should be careful not to burn cookies. Placing 2 or 3 layers of aluminium foil below the wax paper (cooking paper) is good as the prevention. If the surface is burnt, cover it with aluminum foil.
Shortbread
The reference, Japanese version of the recipe is available here.
1) Microwave butter until it gets softened and creamy.
2) Mix butter and sugar well with a whisk.
3) Add salt.
4) Add sifted flour. Mix well with a spatula until moistened.
5) Put the dough into a ziplock.
6) Make the dough rectangular, pressing it well in the ziplock (the thickness should be 1.3cm).
7) Keep the dough in a fridge for 30min-1hr.
8) Preheat the oven at 300 degrees.
8) Open the ziplock with scissors.
9) Cut the dough into long and narrow rectangles (about 6.5cm × 2.2cm). Make small halls on the surfaces with a toothpick or a bamboo skewer.
10) Bake cookies at 300 degrees for 35min.
Ryokucha (green tea) cookie
Replace macha with Ryokucha, and follow the Macha cookie protocol.
Butter cookie
The reference, Japanese version of the recipe is available here.
1) Microwave butter until it gets softened and creamy.
2) Mix butter and sugar well with a whisk.
3) Add egg yolk and mix.
4) Add sifted flour and mix, taking care not to make it sticky.
5) Wrap the dough and make it a bar. Put it in a fridge for 30min-1hr.
6) Coat the side with sugar if you want. Cut the bar into pieces.
7) Bake cookies at 335 degrees for 20-25min.
Results
Cocoa and kinako cookie were popular among the friends (though I thought the former was too sweet and the latter had too weak a taste). The sugar coating around the cocoa and butter cookie made them both look and taste better.
It was difficult to cook kinako cookie inside well, so next time you should make the shape flatter.
Macha cookie tends to be much bigger after baking. Smaller size before baking or another recipe would be better at the next trial.
Shortbread had the best looking. This might be because it was baked at lower temperature for longer time.
I found that Ryokucha can't be a substitute for macha.
Butter cookie was a little too sweet, but it was nice.
Lastly and most importantly, our oven is liable to heat at higher temperature than that we actually set. Thus it's better to keep it at lower temperature than they say in a recipe, see how cookies look like frequently, and decide the appropriate baking time.
Comments / Next Steps
Enjoy many, many cookies ;)!
