Whenever I see a matcha dessert on the menu, I have to think long and hard if I should order it. Matcha is one of my favorite ingredients for sweets because of its earthy, herbal essence. Okay so that might not sound appealing to you but how about if you take that matcha powder, turn it into frosting, and spread it on a soft cookie? Sounds pretty good, right? These matcha and white cookies are a twist on the New York classic treat, the black and white cookie. Traditionally the cookie is chocolate and vanilla but I swapped the flavors for matcha and coconut. Was it a mistake? Absolutely not!

Recipe

Print Recipe

Matcha and White Cookies

8 cookies

Total Time45 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American, Japanese

Keyword: cookies

Servings: 8

Author: Christine Ma

Ingredients

• 1 ⅓ cup all-purpose flour (186 grams)
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ⅓ cup buttermilk (85 ml)
• 2 tablespoon Greek yogurt (30 grams)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup butter, softened (113 grams)
• ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
• 1 large egg
• 2 ¼ cup powdered sugar (295 grams)
• ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon matcha powder

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Combine 1 ⅓ cups flour with ½ teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon salt in a medium bowl. Combine ⅓ cup buttermilk with 2 tablespoon yogurt and 1 teaspoon vanilla in another bowl.
• Cream together ½ cup softened butter with ½ cup granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add 1 egg and beat until well combined.
• Add the wet ingredients, and mix until well combined. Add the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. The batter should be fairly thick.
• Ice an ice cream scooper or greased ¼ cup measuring cup and scoop the batter onto the prepared baking sheet. Leave at least 2 inches in between the cookies, giving them room to spread. Chill the cookies in the fridge for 30 minutes.
• Bake the cookies for 15-17 minutes or until lightly golden on top and golden brown on the bottom. Let the cookies rest for 5 minutes on the baking tray. Flip the cookies over and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Meanwhile, make the icing. Beat together 2 ¼ cups powdered sugar with ¼ cup milk until well combined. The icing will be thick but spreadable. Reserve half of the frosting and add 1 tablespoon matcha and 1 tablespoon milk, stirring until well combined.
• Spread the vanilla frosting on one half of each of the cookies. Let sit for 10 minutes, then spread the matcha frosting on the other half. Let sit for 10 minutes. Serve.

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

When I gave my friends these matcha and white cookies to taste, I was surprised to discover that none of them had a black and white cookie before. If you never had the pleasure, I will tell you now that these are no ordinary cookies. The texture is incredibly soft and delicate because they are cakey cookies! Normally, I like my cookies with a little chew but these are an exception.

If you take a look at the recipe, you will notice that the batter is very similar to a cake batter. You start by creaming the butter with the sugar then adding the egg. Add the wet ingredients, then stir in the dry ingredients just until combined. Scoop ¼ cup of the batter onto prepared baking sheets, giving them plenty of space in between to spread. A quarter cup seems like a lot but black and white cookies are known to be large.

Chill the cookies for 30 minutes to prevent them from spreading too much in the oven. Then, bake the cookies just until the tops are light golden brown. Don't worry if the tops of the cookies are bumpy because you're going to ice the bottom of the cookies. Yup, that's right. The bottom of the cookies become the top! When cooling the cookies, I flipped them over so that the bottoms were facing up. This way, they won't get the lines from the wire rack imprinted on them.

While the cookies are cooling, make the frosting. You're going to need two different frostings, matcha and coconut. Mix together the powdered sugar with coconut milk, then set aside half. For half of the batch, add matcha powder and a touch more milk to make matcha frosting. The frostings should be thick but still be able to spread easily. If they are too thin, they will run off the sides of the cookies.

Now here comes the most time-consuming part, decorating the cookies. I'll be honest, these took way longer than expected. Start with the white coconut frosting, spreading it on half of the cookie. Let it dry for about 10 minutes, then spread the matcha frosting on the other side.

Let the matcha frosting set and then grab a cookie and take a big bite right in the center. Close your eyes and enjoy that soft tender texture coated in beautiful matcha and coconut frosting. Isn't that glorious? Matcha and white cookies are definitely now on my list of best matcha desserts (alongside matcha beignets of course). And the list keeps growing...

For more matcha inspiration check out these matcha Twix bars!