Earl Grey Cookies (with Lavender Glaze)

If you’re looking for a sweet treat with a little bit of uniqueness, these Earl Grey cookies with optional lavender glaze are perfect! They’re easy to make, being drop cookies. Soft, chewy, and full of flavor.

You’ll also find them very easy to make. Unlike many recipes using Earl Grey tea, such as a cake, these cookies don’t require any prep, such as brewing tea in a small saucepan and strain out tea leaves. You’ll get all the delicious Earl Grey flavor from adding the ground tea directly to your dry ingredients. 

I know it might be wrong, but I like to use decaffeinated Earl Grey tea to make these cookies. You still get the citrusy, floral flavor without any caffeine consequences. Though I admit, I may be a little hyper-vigilant about caffeine.

These cookies are great to share in a cookie exchange or potluck-type event. People love to have something a little different but not so different it scares them off. I find these fit the bill because they look like cookies, smell good, and taste good, but it’s almost guaranteed nobody else will have brought them.

Ingredients of Earl Grey Cookies

Ingredients for these cookies are pretty typical – especially if you’re an Earl Grey tea lover and already have some on hand. 

• Flour – all-purpose flour works best.
• Earl Grey Tea leaves. Loose-leaf tea is a little harder to find, so I buy tea bags and cut them open for this recipe. I also find that the tea in single-serving bags is already ground, so no need for a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
• Lavender flowers (optional).  These add a lovely floral note to the cookies and visual appeal.
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Granulated sugar
• Butter
• Egg
• Vanilla extract

These are all your standard cookie-making ingredients except the tea and optional lavender.

We can also make a delicious glaze for the cookies using more tea, powdered sugar, and milk. I like the added glaze, not only for its extra flavor and sweetness, but because it makes the cookies look so nice with a little extra texture.

Substitutions and swaps for this recipe

These are pretty basic cookies, so there aren’t a lot of swaps to be made. The main differences would be things like:

Use a different extract, such as lavender or lemon, in place of the vanilla

Use a different sugar. These cookies are light and focus on the flavor of the tea. If you want to make them a bit richer, you can swap to brown sugar. You can also use evaporated cane juice/sucanat in place of the granulated sugar.

Using a gluten-free flour blend vs. all-purpose flour. I find that this recipe holds up pretty well as a gluten-free recipe, but you’ll probably want to add an extra tablespoon or two of flour to make them thicker. The thinner cookies tended to fall apart a bit.

How to Make Cookies with Earl Grey Tea

1. Preheat oven to 350º
2. To prepare Earl Grey tea, cut open three tea backs and empty them into a small bowl. This should equal the 1 Tablespoon of tea you’ll need for the recipe.
3. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and the tea together in a bowl and set aside
   
4. In a larger mixing bowl or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
5. Beat in egg and vanilla
   
6. Lower the mixer speed and mix in the dry ingredients,
7. Scoop by the tablespoon (I use a cookie scoop) onto an ungreased or parchment paper-lined baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie.
   
8. Bake in the center of the oven for about ten minutes, until the edges are set but the cookies are still soft
9. Remove baking trays from oven and let cool on a wire rack
10. While cookies cool, combine icing ingredients
11. Drizzle icing over cookies, and sprinkle with lavender flours (optional)

Frequently Asked Questions

How to store the cookies. Let them cool completely, and let the icing crust, then store at room temperature in an airtight container. I like to put a layer of parchment paper between each layer of cookies in the container to keep the bottoms from getting sticky.

Can the cookie dough be frozen? Yep! You stuff it into a freezer-safe container and put it directly in the freezer, OR scoop the dough into tablespoon-sized balls and freeze it in a single layer, then put it in a container. This makes it much easier to bake the frozen dough without having to thaw it in order to scoop it.

Can I add lavender to the cookie dough? Yes! There are two main ways to do this. One: Make lavender-infused sugar by adding a tablespoon of lavender buds to the sugar, give it a whirl in the blender, and/or let the lavender sit with the sugar in an airtight container overnight. Soften out lavender buds before adding to the cookie dough. Two: Add lavender extract or oil to the cookie dough. You will probably only want to add a drop or two of lavender oil to this batch.

More cookie recipes for you

• Espresso Toffee Cookies
• Lavender Lemon Bars
• Italian Lemon Cookies
• Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies
• Gluten Free Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

 

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