The Picture of Earl Grey Tea Cookies

So I found this recipe on Earl Grey Tea cookies on Pinterest. It immediately grabbed my attention as the baker named them The Picture of Dorian Earl Grey Cookies. I love Earl Grey Tea and I love the book and film The Picture of Dorian Grey. So this was definitely a win for me.

When I did that tea with my friends a couple of months ago, I thought about making it but for some reason I thought you needed to freeze the dough and I didn’t have time for that. So I just forgot about it…until I purchased some The Picture of Earl Grey Tea from NovelTea Tins. 

I thought it would be perfect to use, but then worried that maybe the jasmine in The Picture of Earl Grey might not blend as easily, after all the recipe called for Earl Grey Tea with Lavender not jasmine and rose petals.

Hmm…

So I decided to try both teas out. The recipe makes a small batch, so it wasn’t too much effort to make a NovelTea Tin’s The Picture of Earl Grey Tea cookies and a batch of Tiesta Tea Victorian Earl Grey Tea cookies.

Tiesta Tea Earl Grey Tea on the left and The Picture of Earl Grey Tea on the Right

This recipe originally comes from The Dough Also Rises. 

Ingredients:

• 1/4 Cup of Butter
• 1/2 Cup of Sugar
• 1/4 Tsp of Baking Soda
• 1/2 Tsp of Vanilla
• A Few Twists of Salt (I did a few pinches)
• 1/2 Cup of Flour
• 1/2 Tsp of Loose Leaf Earl Grey Tea
• Lavender (optional)
• Milk

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Crush the tea with a mortar and pestle (I used the end of a rolling pin.)
3. Beat the butter and sugar together.
4. Add Vanilla and salt. Mix well.
5. Add flour, baking soda, salt, and tea (lavender as well if you adding it in.) Mix well.
6. If dough is too dry, add a little milk.
7. Create 1 inch balls of the dough, roll into sugar, and place on a cookie sheet (far apart, cookies spread.)
8. Bake for 6 minutes or until the edges are brown.
9. Cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a plate.

The Picture of Earl Grey Tea Cookies

 

Tiesta Tea Victorian Earl Grey Tea Cookies

 

The dough has no egg and did come out a bit dry, so I had to add some milk into it, just a little. So these cookies bake really fast. The original recipe said 10 minutes, but my cookies all burned. I had to bring the time down, finding 5 mins they aren’t baked through, and with 7 mins they burned-6 seemed just right.

But they were delicious. Both The Picture of Earl Grey and the Tiesta Tea Victorian Earl Grey Tea cookies came out wonderful! They were so good, I had to force myself to stop eating them.

I tried to stop myself so I wouldn’t overdo it with drinking Earl Grey Tea and eating Earl Grey Tea cookies, but I didn’t. I ate and drank far too much.

For more Earl Grey Tea Cookies, go to Lavender Earl Grey Tea Shortbread Cookies

For more cookie recipes, go to Ginger Cardamom Meyer Lemon Crinkle Cookies

For more recipes, go to Cucumber Sandwiches

For more tea posts, go to I Won the Kumi Crochet and Tea India Giveaway

NovelTea Tins’ Romance Sampler

So my church is doing a “secret sister”. You get matched up with another woman in the church for three months, praying for them and sending them notes or giving them gifts.

With COVID-19 having us shelter in place and not being able to meet at church, if we want to give our secret sisters gifts we have to come up with different ways. My secret sister ended up mailing me $20 to buy myself something nice for Easter.

Hmm…

What to buy? I knew I wanted to support a small business as they are hurting, and searched through Instagram to see which one.

Hmmm…

So a while back I found this company NovelTea Tins and instantly loved how cute it was. They are book tea tins and each have a punny title off of classic literature. You all know how I love classic literature.

War and Peach (Peach Tea + War and Peace), The Picture of Earl Grey (Earl Grey + The Picture of Earl Grey), Matcha Do About Nothing (Matcha Green Tea + Much Ado About Nothing), Pride & Peppermint (Peppermint Tea + Pride and Prejudice), Anne of Green Gables Tea (Green Raspberry Tea + Anne of Green Gables), Sense and Senchability (Green Sencha Tea + Sense and Sensibility), Don Quixote: Man of La Manchai (Chai Tea + Don Quixote: Man of La Mancha), and more. You know me, I love:

So I was excited to try these out. I agonized over which to buy as there were so many that sounded good…but I finally decided on the Romance Sampler, as it had The Picture of Earl Grey, being my favorite type of tea-Earl Grey.

Along with Pride & Peppermint (Peppermint Tea) and Sense and Senchability (Green Sencha Tea). I also love both of those teas and couldn’t resist them being Jane Austen. You know me…

The sampler cost about $24 with shipping and handling and it came extremely fast. I ordered it afternoon on Sunday and it arrived on Tuesday.

Tea #1: The Picture of Earl Grey

This tea is inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of my favorite Gothic novels where a young, gorgeous, rich man gets seduced by the Hedonist lifestyle and wishes that he would never grow old but his beautiful picture would instead. It does, but also with it growing older instead of Dorian-every selfish, cruel, rude, horrible acts he commits-gets transferred onto the painting as well.

It is a great book, and I highly recommend reading it.

The tea actually has the picture of Earl Grey-Charles Grey 2nd Earl Grey, the namesake of the delicious tea, the one that the tea was presented to and comes with a bookmark with his face on it as well.

This tea is made of Jasmine Green Tea, Black Tea, Rose Petals, Natural Flavor; and has moderate caffeine.

So I LOVE Earl Grey, but I did not love this one. It wasn’t bad, but I felt the Jasmine Green Tea in it was too strong. I tasted that over everything else and I prefer my Earl Grey with black tea, lavender, and bergamot oil. 

What I ended up doing was mixing it with my Tiesta Tea and enjoying it. My mom loved it, so please don’t think I’m saying the tea is bad, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

For more on The Picture of Dorian Gray, go to If Only It Was the Picture Who was to Grow Old, and I Remain Young: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Tea #2: Pride and Peppermint

This tea is inspired by Pride and Prejudice and I’m sure most of you know how much I love this book.

Pride and Prejudice is the story of a mother wanting to marry off her daughters, as with their father’s death they will have very little-but the story is MORE than that. It deals with the concepts of pride and prejudice, first impressions, whether you should be overt in how you feel or play it close to the heart, etc. It has amazing wit and characters.

This peppermint tea has Elizabeth Bennet on it and comes with two bookmarks, one with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

Peppermint tea was my first love, when I just started drinking tea. It is made of organic rooibos, organic peppermint, and organic chamomile; it is also caffeine-free.

I thought this tea to smell absolutely divine and it was so delicious. I absolutely loved it, and immediately drank three cups.

For more Pride and Prejudice, go to Pride & Prejudice: A New Musical

Tea #3: Sense and Senchability

This tea is inspired by Sense and Sensibility, and like Pride and Prejudice I love Sense and Sensibility.

Sense and Sensibility follows two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, as their world is drastically changed when their father dies and they older half brother moves them out of the house and basically forgets they even exist. Elinor is the elder sister-logical, sensible, and in command of herself. Marianne is the middle daughter-passionate, outspoken, and emotional. Elinor falls for a man, but finds him promised to another. Marianne meets a man right out of her romantic dreams, but is he all that he seems to be? Each sister goes through a journey and discovers depths to them they never realized.

This tea has both sisters on it and comes with a bookmark that has a Dashwood sister on either side. This has green Sencha tea and “sensible levels of caffeine.” Haha, I love that.

This tea was fantastic. It probably is the best Sencha tea I’ve ever had.

For more Sense and Sensibility, go to Rational Creatures: Elinor & Marianne Dashwood

So these teas were so cute and good, even though the first one was not my cup of tea-but I had  wonderful time drinking them.

For more tea posts, go to I Won the Cederberg Tea Giveaway + Book Club Picks: The Insanity of God