Subtle & Not Beautiful

I am a little disappointed with my green tea almond shortbread cookies. I imagined beautiful elegant cookies. Well, damper on my party, I had a freakin' hard time making them look pretty. This really teaches me to appreciate cut out cookies & remind me that I suck at it. First I tried to cut it from a log, & then I tried to use cookie cutters...I just couldn't get them to look all gorgeous beautiful & perfect. I'm not quite sure what my problem was, if I knew, I'd fix it! The dough has to be just the right temperature, the knife has to be sharp & there's some technique/experience there that I'm lacking. Plus my shortbread puffed up a bit!! No one else's looked puffy, they look perfectly flat & dense. Arrgghh!! Maybe I somehow overworked the dough, over fluffed my butter, or I reduced the sugar too much & the almonds made it difficult to get a clean cut. Otherwise, the green tea flavor was subtle, the cookie was dense & just slightly crumbly, not too sweet & the butter flavor was fragrant, as always.

~*~

Green Tea Almond Shortbread
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), room temperature
1/2 powdered sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup AP flour (spooned & leveled)
1 1/2 tblspn matcha green tea powder

3/8 cup sliced almonds

• In a stand mixer, beat together butter, sifted powdered sugar, almond extract & salt until smooth.
• In a separate bowl, sift the flour & green tea powder. Slowly add to butter mixture to form a dough.
• Hand fold in almonds.
• On parchment paper, form the dough into a log (6 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide & 1 inch thick), & freeze until firm ~1 hour (or up to 3 months covered in plastic wrap).
• Remove dough from freezer (if dough is too hard, defrost for 20 - 30 minutes to allow cutting without crumbling).
• With a sharp knife, cut slices about 1/4 inch thick.
• Place on parchment-lined baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Refrigerate dough for another 15 minutes.
• Preheat oven 325F.
  
• Bake ~20 - 25 minutes, till edges turn just about light golden.
• Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, transfer to cooling rack.
• Makes about 20 cookies.