This Thai Milk Tea Cookies post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclaimer.
Imagine the fragrant aroma from Thai tea, combined with soft buttery melt-in-your-mouth cookies, you get these beautifully flavoured Thai milk tea butter cookies. Every bite is a flavour burst of the famous spiced tea, perfect indulgence for an afternoon tea snack.
What is Thai milk tea
Thai milk tea is a signature non-alcoholic beverage from Thailand. If you visit the major souvenir stores in Thailand, you will find these pretty little golden brown or red tins of the Thai tea for sale. The ready-to-drink milk tea can be found at the regular drink stalls along the streets, food centres, and shopping malls. In Singapore, we can easily buy this tea from supermarkets such as Cold Storage.
Thai milk tea is absolutely delicious and fragrant. The tea is a mixture of spiced black tea (most commonly assam or ceylon tea leaves), sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, vanilla extract and possibly some orangey colouring that gives it a bright orange tint. Some variations may also contain other spices and flavourings to enhance the taste. So bear in mind, you might not need to add sugar or sweetener when making the tea as it’s already mildly sweetened.
How to make Thai milk tea butter cookies
I have previously posted the classic vanilla butter cookies and the chocolate butter cookies. Using the vanilla version, you just have to make some minor tweaks to make this Thai tea version. Just by adding a few tablespoons of the brewed tea and the fine tea leaves into the cookie dough, the whole kitchen will be filled with the beautiful aroma of the tea. However as heat does reduce most of the fragrance, there’s no harm adding more of the tea and tea leaves into the dough.
In fact you can use the vanilla version as the base, and add any flavours you like. Some other flavours I made include the laksa leaves salted egg yolk cookies, yuzu honey cookies, and lavender cookies. The small variation in the herbs, spices, jams or pastes you add can make a big difference in the flavour.
Ingredients to make Thai milk tea cookies
How to store Thai tea butter cookies
Once baked, cool the cookies completely on a cooling rack. Then store the cookies in an airtight container in room temperature. The cookies will be fresh and delicious for one to two weeks.
If you have to keep it longer, you can either keep it in the chiller section of the fridge for up to three weeks, or freeze the cookies for up to two month. To consume, simply thaw at room temperature before serving.
Pin now, bake later
Thai Milk Tea Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 100 g cake flour, I used Blue Jacket brand, can substitute with plain flour
- 25 g corn starch
- 8 g milk powder
- 1 tbsp Thai milk tea leaves
- 1 teabag Thai milk tea leaves, to make Thai milk tea
- 2 tbsp hot water, to infuse Thai milk tea
- 40 g stevia sweetener
- 100 g unsalted butter, softened
- 1 large egg yolk, room temperature
- 0.5 tbsp whipping cream, room temperature
Instructions
- Make the Thai milk tea by infusing 1 teabag Thai milk tea leaves into 2 tbsp hot water and let it steep for 10 minutes. Discard the tea leaves after 10 minutes. Let the tea cool completely.
- Remove 100 g unsalted butter from fridge and leave at room temperature until softened. When pressed, the butter makes a dent easily.
- Add 40 g stevia sweetener and softened butter to a mixing bowl. Use a whisk to manual mix them together.Note: This is to avoid the sweetener 'splashing' around when you start whisking in high speed.
- Mix the stevia sweetener and butter mixture with an electric whisk on high speed (or you can use a food mixer) until pale and fluffy.
- The mixture will turn from yellow to almost white.
- Add the Thai milk tea, 1 tbsp Thai milk tea leaves, 1 large egg yolk, 0.5 tbsp whipping cream to the egg mixture.
- Whisk well on medium speed until well incorporated.
- Sift in 100 g cake flour, 25 g corn starch, 8 g milk powder.Fold in the dry ingredients manually using a spatula till no traces of flour can be seen. Be sure not to over mix.Note: yields about 320g cookie dough.
- Transfer the cookie dough into a piping bag.
- Optional to use a piping tip. Place the tip into a separate piping bag, by cutting off the tip of the bag and inserting the piping tip to the end of the piping bag. Then insert the piping bag with the cookie dough.
- Pipe the cookie dough onto a non-stick baking tray, leaving an-inch gap in between each cookie.Cover the cookie dough with a cling wrap, and chill in the fridge for 30 min while pre heating the oven.Note: Best to use a piping bag as the cookie dough is very soft due to the amount of liquid from the tea. Don’t pipe the cookies too big as cookies will expand. If the baking tray is not non-stick, use a parchment paper over the tray.
- Bake the cookies at 175C / 347F (oven has top and bottom heat with fan) for 9-10 min until the edges are nicely golden brown.
- Cool the cookies completely on a cooling rack.
- Best enjoyed after a day, to let the flavours develop.
Leave a Reply