Peppermint and Elderberry Infused Tea Cookies – Culinary Seasons

The first tea I tried from Mystic Valley Farm in Rogue River, Oregon was the Stay Well Tea. Drinking the tea, it delivers soothing herbal notes of elderberry, chamomile, calendula, lemongrass and finishes with refreshing peppermint. Discussing with Trinity, owner of Mystic Valley Farm, possible food pairings with her teas, the peppermint and elderberry notes of the tea had my mind drifting off to holidays and developing a peppermint cookie.

“Excellent as an everyday immune support, this delicious herbal tea blend boosts your well-being and tastes great!” – Trinity at Mystic Valley Farms.

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Adapting a Passed Down Family Recipe

The recipe is an adaptation of a cookie our family has made for generations that was passed on from my mom’s aunt. I currently have the original recipe of Aunt Mary’s Sugar Cookie scribbled on an old envelope that I had handy when my mom passed it on to me years ago. I guess I should probably get it into a format that wouldn’t be so easy to discard with some junk mail.

How do you get tea into a cookie?

Infusing the Stay Well Tea into the cookie took a couple of tries before I got the tea flavor to come through in the final bake. I attempted to infuse the oil in the recipe by heating the oil with the tea and steeping afterwards. I also made a sugar infusion by putting tea in an infuser and letting it sit in a jar of sugar for a couple of weeks. The oil method did not produce a bold tea flavor, most likely because the oil saturated the tea ingredients. The sugar method of infusing produced a very fragrant sugar with hints of peppermint in the taste but during the baking process lost some of the flavor as well.

On my second attempt, I decided to infuse the butter by heating it with the tea allowing for the milk solids in the butter to retain the tea flavor. The butter took on a darker color, not as dark as a cup of tea but I could see that the tea had remained in the butter. In order to use the infusion in the cookie recipe, I had to strain the tea from the butter. Then chill the butter to get it to solidify, then soften at room temperature. This would allow me to cream the infused butter with the sugars to get a smooth mixture in the first step of the cookie recipe.

There are other methods of infusing tea into baked goods but with the hearty ingredients in the Stay Well Tea I did not feel that grinding the ingredients would make for a cookie that would be appealing to eat with bits of tea. The butter infusion method leads to a great flavor in the final cookie and does not have bits of ground tea in it that make you wonder, what did I just eat?

I hope you enjoy this flavorful, light textured sugar cookie as much as our family has. Don’t think you only have to make this during holiday time, it is a delicious cookie that your coworkers and friends will enjoy at the next get together!

Head over to Mystic Valley Farm’s website or catch Trinity at a Southern Oregon Growers Market to pick up some of her delicious teas!

Dough chilling time

4-24

hours

**This recipe is written using Salted Butter but if you want to use Unsalted Butter add 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt to the dry ingredients in the recipe.
** The dough must be fully chilled before portioning cookie. It is much easier to work with.
**The recipe can be doubled or increased as you like. Typically we make this recipe at holidays and do at least a double recipe.

Kitchen items needed for recipe –

2 Baking Sheet Pans2 Non Stick Baking Mats or parchment paper1 Small Saucepan for butter infusion1 Strainer Cheesecloth – enough to cover strainerSmall Scoop to portion doughKitchen Style Mixer or Bowl, Whisk and Spatula

1/2 cup measure with flat bottom to press cookies onto sheet pan