Matcha White Chocolate Cookies

I love these matcha white chocolate cookies, but matcha is really quite a divisive flavour – most people I force-feed it to either love it or hate it. Clearly, I’m in the love-it camp.

It’s got that slightly bitter and unique green tea taste. I personally just love pairing matcha with the smooth sweetness of white chocolate. They’re a perfect combination.

These matcha cookies are great with a cup of tea or coffee. I also like giving a freshly baked batch of these cookies as gifts to friends and family. Quite a few people I feed them to haven’t come across matcha before, and I love showing them what they’ve been missing out on!

If you’ve not had matcha green tea flavoured baked goods before, these matcha white chocolate cookies are definitely a great dessert idea to start you off.

Jump to:

• 🍵 What is matcha?
• ✏️ Making a tasty and easy recipe
• 🥘 Ingredients notes
• 🔪 Equipment notes
• 🍱 Storage
• 💭 Top tips for success
• ♻️ Alternatives and substitutions
• 🧁 Other goodies
• 📋 Recipe

🍵 What is matcha?

Matcha is a finely ground powder made from the same plant as green tea. It is specially grown and processed from green tea leaves, made differently from what you find in your standard green tea bags. There are also different quality grades of matcha powder.

Can you bake with matcha powder?

Yes! When baking with matcha powder, be sure to use food-grade or ceremonial-grade matcha powder. Matcha powder adds a delicious green tea flavour to your baked goods and will add a vibrant green colour too.

Matcha has a slightly bitter natural flavour, which makes it amazing when you have it in a matcha latte with some vanilla syrup (my personal Starbucks favourite). It’s even better used in desserts and sweet treats. The earthy green tea flavour is balanced beautifully by sweet flavours such as white chocolate and vanilla or fruity citrus flavours such as lemon.

As it’s a very strong flavour, you don’t need much of the matcha green tea powder to flavour your baked goods. In this recipe, I only use 2 tsp of matcha powder.

✏️ Making a tasty and easy recipe

These matcha white chocolate cookies are nicely thick and chewy. They’re based off my cake-like basic cookie recipe, with a few tweaks to account for the natural bitterness of matcha green tea.

In my recipe testing, I originally used quite a cheap matcha powder for these matcha cookies. Learn from my mistakes! It gives your matcha cookies a brown tone rather than a pretty vibrant green, and the taste isn’t quite as pure.

I also found that the cheaper matcha powder meant I needed more of it to get through that fresh green tea taste, and this turned the matcha cookies a little too bitter. So, I bought a better quality brand of powder matcha and the results were so different and much more delicious! Make sure you get a baking or ceremonial grade of matcha green tea powder (expensive but so worth it!).

Don’t panic when you see your matcha white chocolate cookies rising up in the oven. They don’t stay that way but will flatten out a little to give you a chewy, gooey, texture that is sweet mouth joy.

🥘 Ingredients notes

• One of my top tips that applies to every recipe is to use quality ingredients! For example, I used to use a cheap baking spread when I made desserts, such as these matcha cookies, but I’ve seen such tastier results now that I use real butter and a good brand at that.

• Not all matcha powder is created equal. I’d strongly advise that you splash out and get a ceremonial or baking grade matcha powder, preferably from a good brand. If you get cheap matcha powder, your matcha chocolate will look a little more brown than vibrant green and won’t taste as good. I like to use the Matchaeologist matcha powder or Pure Chimp matcha powder (affiliate links - both are great quality).

• The quality of your white chocolate is also important. I’ve found some that taste pretty bland. Your best bet is to buy good quality white chocolate chips specially made for baking. For this, check in the baking aisle of the supermarket. I usually use Callebaut white chocolate when I bake - such a delicious taste!

• When it comes to using self-raising flour (or cake flour as it is sometimes known), it’s important to check the use-by date. The active ingredients in this flour won’t work if your flour is out of date, which means your cookies won’t rise.

• It’s easiest to start with room temperature butter for this recipe, but if your butter is too warm your dough might be sticky and hard to work with. If so, one of my top tips is to chill the dough for 15mins before rolling it into balls. You should then still chill the balls of dough further before baking to get a nice thick cookie.

• Similarly, using room temperature eggs is also important to allow for better mixing.

• It’s vital you sieve your matcha powder before adding it to the cookie dough, as it’s naturally such a lumpy powder. I swear it’s impossible to get the lumps out once they’re in your dough, and trying to do so means you'll be over-mixing your cookie dough.

• I prefer to use vanilla extract rather than vanilla essence, as it has a better stronger flavour. It’s a purer vanilla taste as it’s less processed than vanilla essence.

• When measuring your ingredients, I always recommend using weights rather than cups for greater accuracy. This is especially important for the amount of flour.

🔪 Equipment notes

• I like to use digital scales for weighing my ingredients as it's easier and more accurate than other scales (or using no scales!). I'm a fan of these KitchenAid or Salter ones!

• Use measuring spoons for your tsp and tbsp amounts where possible. Make sure the scoops filled with your ingredients are levelled before adding them to your mix!

🍱 Storage

You can store your matcha cookies in an airtight container. They should keep for up to 4 days stored at room temperature.

💭 Top tips for success

• When baking the cookies in batches, try not to place the next batch of dough balls straight onto the hot baking paper from the last batch. This will cause your cookies to spread more. Allow the baking tray and lining sheet to cool before baking your next batch of matcha cookies.

• Try not to overmix the cookie dough. If you over-beat your mix, this will add too much air into the dough. This can cause your cookies to rise and then collapse completely when they bake.

Troubleshooting help:

If you’ve got any specific questions on making these chewy white chocolate matcha cookies, please feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll try my best to help out!

Alternatively, you can get in touch via my Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest – I’d love to hear from you!

♻️ Alternatives and substitutions

For these green tea cookies, you can experiment with your own sizes of cookie depending on how you like them. You can also change the thickness by refrigerating the matcha cookie dough for longer prior to baking. The longer you leave your cookie dough to chill, the less it will spread out in the oven. This will result in thicker and more chewy cookies as opposed to the thin and crispy type.

If you’re not a big fan of white chocolate, you can swap these chips for milk or dark chocolate. I'd recommend using the same quantity. You can even add all three chocolate chip types for a decadent triple chocolate matcha cookie!

I’m a huge matcha fan, so I like to put a healthy dose into these cookies. If you’re not so sure how much you’re going to like the taste, you can reduce the matcha powder to ¾ of the amount (7-8g).

Gluten-free option:

For a gluten-free version, you can swap the regular plain/all-purpose flour for a gluten-free plain/all-purpose flour blend of the same quantity.

I usually recommend swapping in a pre-mixed flour blend such as King Arthur's measure for measure flour or Freee from Doves Farm.

To be safe, check your other ingredients for allergen warnings on the nutritional label, as they may have cross-contamination warnings.

🧁 Other goodies

So, I definitely recommend that you whip up a batch of these easy matcha white chocolate cookies! But as an avid home baker, I’m sure you’re asking yourself “what next?”.

If you’re a fan of cookies, check out my white chocolate pecan cookies! White chocolate chips in cookies are just delicious. Or perhaps you enjoy your cookies in an easy traybake bar form? If so, give these Bakewell cookie bars a try!

Love white chocolate? Then you might love my recipe for a white chocolate and lemon cake - it's the perfect easy birthday cake! It even uses a simple white chocolate lemon ganache frosting made without cream.

Or why not give my recipe for black sesame tahini shortbread with a matcha chocolate dip a try? They're perfect for an afternoon pick-me-up with your cup of tea or coffee.

Big fan of matcha green tea? Fear not, more matcha dessert recipes are coming to Sweet Mouth Joy very soon! I’m far too obsessed with the flavour for there not be more coming your way.

Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!

Or if you’d like to hear about our latest recipes, why not subscribe to our newsletter?

📋 Recipe

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