Easy Earl Grey Cookies: Soft, No-Mixer, Ready in 30 Minutes

🩵Ease Level & Flavor Profile

Ease Level: So easy to make because you don’t need a mixer and you can use melted butter. Mix everything into one bowl, scoop, and bake!

Flavor Profile: These Earl Grey cookies have a delicate, floral tea flavor with a subtle hint of citrus, thanks to the bergamot. The black tea base gives them a slightly earthy, aromatic flavor that compliments the sweetness of the cookie. The flavor is balanced and not overpowering, making the cookies light and fragrant. I’ve included two ways to incorporate the ground Earl Grey tea leaves because I couldn’t decide which one I liked more and neither could my friends! One way of adding the Earl Grey tea is folding the ground tea leaves into the cookie dough or infusing the butter for a more tea-forward flavor. 

👨🏽‍🍳First To Make This Earl Grey Cookie Recipe

Dan Nunez was the first to send me pictures of the earl grey cookies he made and they look great!!!

"I wanted a stronger earl Grey tea taste so we did the method with infusing the tea with the butter." "thank you for the recipe its amazing🩵" - Dan Nunez + friend

And his comment was so sweet!!!

🥣Main Ingredients

Ingredient picture for the earl grey cookies to be added in the future :)

• Earl Grey Tea: Earl Grey tea is a type of black tea flavored with oil. Bergamot, a citrus fruit with a flavor profile similar to an orange and a lemon, with a hint of floral notes. This tea is often enjoyed plain or with milk, and a bit of sweetener. Earl Grey is one of the most popular flavored teas and often used in desserts and baked goods, like cakes, cookies, and pastries. I love it as a milk tea and adding it to my vanilla cake base or cookie base for a fruity, floral, tea flavor. I use my coffee bean grinder to grind my whole dried tea leaves for a finer texture. Hopefully they make earl grey tea powder more readily available one day!
• Milk powder: Milk powder, also known as powdered milk or dry milk, is a dairy product made by evaporating the moisture from liquid milk until only the dry solids remain. This process creates a shelf-stable powder that can be reconstituted with water to resemble fresh milk. You’ll find milk powder is commonly used in baking, especially in Asian baked goods, as it adds richness, enhances flavor, and improves texture without adding extra liquid. It's especially useful in recipes where you want the benefits of milk but don't want to alter the consistency, like in this cookie recipe. While toasting the milk powder adds a deliciously nutty flavor, you don’t have to toast it or add any milk powder to this Earl Grey cookies recipe, it will still be delicious without it.
• Vanilla extract or paste:  Vanilla extract is a flavoring made by soaking vanilla beans in alcohol, which extracts the beans' natural flavors. It's a common ingredient in baking and cooking, used to enhance the flavor of cakes, cookies, ice cream, custards, and many other desserts. Unlike vanilla extract, which is liquid, vanilla paste has a syrupy texture and includes the tiny black flecks from real vanilla beans, giving both flavor and a visual appeal. Vanilla paste is often used in recipes where you want a slightly stronger vanilla flavor and the appearance of vanilla bean specks, like in custards, ice creams, cakes, and pastries. It's an excellent substitute for vanilla beans when you want the same rich flavor without the hassle of scraping the beans yourself. You can typically use vanilla paste as a 1:1 substitute for vanilla extract.

See recipe card below for ingredient measurements for earl grey cookies! This is for those that want a more in-depth idea of what each ingredient is and what they do. ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

✨Step By Step Instructions

Step 1: Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients together.

Step 2: Mix until just combined.

Step 3: Portion out cookie dough using ice cream scoop. Place them close together for chilling/freezing or 2-3 inches apart for baking on a sheet pan.

Step 4: Bake and enjoy! :)

📖Substitutions/Variations

Want to switch it up? Here are some variations and substitutions you can try

✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ ): 

• No vanilla? no problem! Use other extracts like orange or lemon for a different flavor profile pairing.
• Make it vegan by using vegan unsalted butter.
• MORE TEA FLAVOR! There are two ways you can flavor these soft, earl grey cookies. The first is to just mix the grounded tea leaves directly into the cookie dough or by infusing the tea leaves in the butter, it creates a stronger tea flavor. Either way you add tea leaves results in a delicious earl grey-forward cookie!

Enjoy! ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ Please tag @sparklecakerie if you make this! I’d love to see and share your creations on social media. ♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡⋆˚✿˖°

🔪Tools

• microwave safe mixing bowl
• rubber spatula
• cookie scoop (3 tablespoon)
• parchment paper
• cookie sheet pan
• cooling rack

❄️STORAGE INSTRUCTIONS

• For Baked Cookies:
  • At room temperature, store cookies in an airtight container or resealable plastic bag. For soft cookies, place a slice of bread in the container to maintain moisture. Cookies stay fresh for 3-5 days. Crisp cookies may last slightly longer but may lose some crunch over time.
  • In the freezer, Place cooled cookies in a single layer on a baking sheet to freeze, then transfer to a freezer-safe bag or container. Separate layers with parchment paper if you'd like to help prevent them from sticking when freezing the cookies. Cookies remain fresh for up to 3 months. Let them sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes or reheat in a 300°F (150°C) oven for a few minutes to refresh the texture when thawing.

• For Unbaked Cookie Dough:
  • In the fridge, wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap or store in an airtight container. Dough can be refrigerated for 2-3 days before baking. Bake directly from fully chilled at 325 F (with fan) or 350 F (without fan), for about 12-14 minutes.
  • In the freezer, shape dough into balls and freeze on a baking sheet until solid. Transfer to a freezer-safe bag or container, removing excess air. Frozen dough lasts up to 3 months. Bake directly from frozen at 300 F (with fan) or 325 F / (without fan) for about 12-14 minutes depending on cookie texture preferences. I love freezing extra cookie dough whenever I make batches so I always have a freshly baked treat whenever I want :)
    
    If you're having issues with the earl grey cookie edges baking crispy before the center is done when baking from frozen, sometimes variables like what baking pan you're using, oven brands, etc can contribute to that so you can try lowering the temperature to 275 F (fan) / 300 F (no fan) for 10-14 minutes instead :)
    
    Another option is that you can let the frozen cookie dough defrost first either in the fridge the evening before and bake using the "from chilled" directions or let it defrost completely to room temperature and follow the baking instruction as if you were baking "freshly made" cookie dough. Hope this helps!

‼️Pro Tips

• Freeze your extra cookie dough! Having a cookie dough freezer stash is my secret weapon for late night cravings (who else loves a freshly baked cookie at 9pm??) and last-minute hosting guests/gifting! Pre-portioned dough means warm, freshly baked cookies are always 15 minutes away, no thawing needed. Will I bake them all at once? Probably…but I don’t see the problem :) 
  
  I've been using these stainless steel stackable containers. They aren't completely air tight but if you plan to only freeze for about a month, they should be okay without freezer burn. Each container should fit about 8x (1.5oz) scooped cookie doughs. To make it more airtight, use this press & seal before placing the lid on top to store the frozen cookie dough for up to 3 months. Until I find a better container, this is what I've been doing for now. Hope this helps. 💙✨

• If you're a fan of earl grey tea flavor and want a more pronounced tea flavor in these Earl Grey cookies, try infusing the butter! Add ground tea leaves while the butter is still gently bubbling as it melts, then let it cool. This technique will give you a darker, more robust Earl Grey flavor in your cookies.

• If you prefer a subtle earl grey tea flavor that complements the vanilla, you can skip infusing the butter and mix the ground tea leaves into your dry ingredients or decrease the amount of ground tea leaves. This will result in a cookie that spreads slightly more, with a delicate Earl Grey flavor and a lighter color.

• For the perfect circular cookie, scoot it! Use a heat safe circular cookie cutter, mason jar ring, or even a mug to scoot the cookies when freshly baked (while they're still soft and haven't set yet). This helps shape them into a more uniform circle.
• No grounded earl grey tea leaves? No problem! Me neither LOL I actually get loose earl grey tea leaves and then use my mini coffee/spice grinder to blend it until it becomes grounded (but not powder) tea leaves. I love seeing the little specks of tea through out the cookie dough and you still taste the delicious earl grey flavor more than if you were to just use whole tea leaves.
• Using tea bags? Standard tea bags that I've seen in the USA are about 1 teaspoon loose leaf tea so for every 1 tablespoons finely ground earl grey tea leaves, it's about 3-4 tea bags. I like to grind a bigger batch of tea leaves as once and store in an air tight jar so the ground tea leaves are ready for me to use right away!

FAQ

⏲️Overwhelmed? Make Ahead!

Do you feel overwhelmed or have a busy schedule but still want to bake this earl grey cookie recipe?! Here is a general idea of the work flow I would do as a professionally trained baker (with a degree in Baking & Pastry Arts) and years of experience in NYC bakeries to help you have more fun!⬇٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

(Spoiler (ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ.ﾟ: most bakes in professional kitchens/bakeries are broken down into steps for efficiency. We usually aren't measuring, mixing, baking EVERYTHING on the same day. Some components are prepped beforehand so don't feel bad if you feel like you aren't accomplishing what you'd like to in your baking journey, you just haven't figured out the right system yet! Let me help you with that~⋆˙♡)

You can combine any of the work days to suit your timeline. The idea is you really don't have to make everything in ONE DAY! My recipe card below is written in a way to make and bake this in one day for recipe structuring purposes (as well as reading or printing) but if I were to break up the baking steps for these earl grey tea cookies, this is what I would do:

˗ˏˋ ★ Day By Day Baking Steps For Earl Grey Cookies ★ ˎˊ˗

Day 1 (measure ingredients): Grind your tea leaves. Measure out the dry ingredients for the earl grey cookies and set aside. Take your egg and butter (don't mix them together) and set aside. (You can combine day 1+2 steps)

Day 2 (make cookie dough and chill/freeze): Mix the earl grey cookie dough and either scoop it onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, covering it with plastic wrap to prevent drying, or portion it into a container with a lid. Put into fridge or freezer (make sure to use freezer friendly containers if freezing). You can bake these scones chilled from the fridge or from frozen (and this makes it super easy to make way in advance to have in your freezer and bake whenever.)

Day 3 (bake): Bake cookie dough and cool.

If baking chilled earl grey cookie dough from the fridge, you may need to add another 1-2 minutes to the baking time.

If baking from frozen, lower baking temperature to 300 F (with fan)/ 325 F (without Fan) and bake for about 10 minutes - 12minutes.

of course this depends on your cookie texture preference but you can use that as a general baking time line :)

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ woohoo, you did it!!! ٩>ᴗ<)و I hope this was fun and it helped you become a more confident baker ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

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