Lauren, over at Celiac Teen, tweeted about her hosting Go Ahead Honey It’s Gluten Free this month.  She has a link up on her site where you can check what foodie days are in the month of January and suggests you chose one of those foods and “Follow the Calendar”.  Well, it’s national tea month and today is national shortbread day.

Last year I got this great tea set for Christmas and as a little side gift my mom included some tea cookies which were actually shortbread cookies with tea in them.  They didn’t last very long.  Since then, I’ve been experimenting with adding my favorite teas to my regular go-to cookie recipes.  I’d never tried making shortbread though.  I had made traditional scones the other day from Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts (so delicious btw! Been having so much success with her recipes!) and I noticed a shortbread cookie recipe in there.  Perfect for this GAHIGF!  My first shortbread cookies, with tea and a white chocolate drizzle.

GAHIGF – White Chocolate There’s Tea in There Shortbreads adapted from Annalise Roberts Shortbread Cookie recipe in Gluten Free Baking Classics

Ingredients: (makes about 11 cookies depending on cookie cutter size)

1/2 c. unsalted butter cut into small cubes

1/8 c. coconut sugar* (just fill the 1/4c. up halfway, eyeball it… yeah I’m daring like that)

1/8 c. organic cane sugar*

1 teabag of your favorite tea (I used Pomegranate Vanilla Red Tea by the Republic of Tea)

5 Tbl. hot water – no, it doesn’t have to be boiling or anything, just using it to steep the tea

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 c. Brown Rice Flour Mix** (It’s brown rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca flour. Here are the proportions on Annalise’s site.)

1/4 c. sweet rice flour***

1/4 tsp. xantham gum

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 c. white chocolate chips

Plastic wrap

Cookie cutters.  I used hearts about 1/2 inch tall and 2 inches at the widest point.

Directions:

1. Steep tea bag in hot water until tea is nice and dark.

2. Cream butter and sugars to a medium sized bowl.  Add 1 tablespoon of steeped tea and the vanilla to sugar mixture and beat until incorporated.  If you use coconut sugar, you will see brown specs.  That’s fine!

3.  Add remaining ingredients and mix (scraping down sides if necessary) until the dough looks crumbly, but can be pressed together easily between fingers to make a smooth-looking dough.

4. Use a spatula to loosen any dough from inside of bowl.  Use your hands to press dough together into one ball.  Turn out onto a pice of plastic wrap and press or roll the dough to get about a 1/2 inch thickness.  Wrap in the plastic wrap and stick in freezer about 5 mins.  You want it firm, not frozen.  If it does get too firm just leave it out a bit.  The dough softens quickly and as you work with it.

5. Preheat oven**** to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use foil and barely grease it or not.  I used foil and didn’t grease it and the bottoms stuck just a teensy bit.

6. Once dough is chilled, remove from freezer and go to town with your cookie cutter(s).  Place cutouts on cookie sheet and bake about 14 minutes.  You want then slightly golden, not brown at all.  Carefully remove your parchment or foil from the baking sheet and place on a kitchen towel placed on your counter to let then cool a bit. Then, transfer to wire rack if desired.

7. While cookies are cooling, place chocolate into a small microwave safe dish.  Heat for 15 seconds at a time, mixing in between, until chocolate is nice and melted.  Once the cookies are cool, dip a small spoon into the white chocolate and use it to drizzle that stuff yummily over your cookies.  As much or as little as you like.  Let chocolate harden and eat up!

A few notes:

*You can substitute the coconut and organic sugars for regular granulated sugar if you like.

**I make batches of this flour mix to have on hand.  Eliminates a step when I go to use it in a recipe.

***The sweet rice flour is NOT plain white rice flour.  The brand I have says Mochiko sweet rice flour blue star brand by Koda Farms (see image here).  I found it at a little asian foods market here in Ivins, UT.  You can also find other brands  here or here in regular-sized quantities.  If your grocery store carries sweet rice flour it will most likely be in the International foods aisle with the asian foods.

****I made these in my toaster oven!  There were just enough cookies to fit on the baking sheet that came with the oven.  Worked great!