Earl Grey Infused Mickey Mouse Butter Cookies

Susanne's friend wanted a Mickey Mouse themed birthday party for her little boy and I am helping out with making Mickey Mouse cookies for the teachers. Since it's the teachers and not the kids who are consuming the cookies, I took the liberty of infusing earl grey tea into the cookies ;).

The cookies smell lovely! Can you find Mickey among the Minnies?

I did some trial cookies with earl grey tea leaves in the cookie dough instead of steeping the tea bags in milk. The result was not visually nice although the earl grey flavor would be stronger as the spots of tea leaves makes it hard for the Mickey mouse imprint to stand out.

I didn't have Mickey cookie cutters when I did the trial, just in case you are wondering :p.

This type of cookie goes well with a cup of tea or coffee. My hubby and dad sampled some extra cookies that I baked and said it's yummy as butter cookies with milk tea flavor. The flavor kicks in when the cookie crumbles and melts in your mouth. The tea flavor is mild since I didn't use the tea leaves directly. If you are not aiming for good looking cookies, do include some earl grey tea leaves in the cookie dough for a stronger bergamot flavor. My dad could tell that it's earl grey flavored but hubby couldn't.

The recipe is adapted from here.

Ingredients (makes about 56 cookies):
5 earl grey tea bags
100g fresh milk (will use only 54g worth in cookie dough)
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
186g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
110g caster sugar
210g corn flour
210g plain flour

Steps:
1. Heat up the milk until hot over the stove or in a microwave oven. Steep the tea bags for 5 minutes.  Squeeze as much tea infused milk out of the tea bags as possible. Reserve 54g. Add vanilla extract and salt into the milk and mix well. Chill in the fridge.

2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy by hand or with electric mixer.

3. Gradually add in tea infused milk and mix well, lightly beating the mixture.

4. Gradually fold in sifted corn flour and cake flour with a spatula until no trace of flour is seen.

5. Divide the dough into 2. Put the dough between 2 baking sheets and roll to 1/4" thick. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

6. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Dust the surface of the dough evenly with some plain flour before cutting out the Mickey Mouse shapes. Place the cut-outs on baking tray lined with baking sheet. The cookies won't expand much during baking so about 1-1.5cm spacing between cookies is sufficient.

**Tips: 

- Flouring the surface evenly is important to prevent the dough from sticking on the cookie cutter. You get nice clear imprints this way :). You may flour the cookie cutter too but make sure that the excess flour is knocked out of the nooks and crannies. Or dig it out with a toothpick.

- You may wish to place the dough on flat freezer packs to keep the dough chilled as you cut out the shapes. Soft warm dough is very hard to handle.

- Separating the dough into 2 batches is optional but I find that it is more efficient to do so. While the leftover dough from one batch is being re-rolled and chilled in the fridge, you can cut out more shapes from the other batch of dough. When the two batches of leftover dough are small, you may combine them and continue cutting out shapes. By then, the dough is still workable and not one soft lump.

7. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. Cool completely before storing in airtight container. Mine were packed in pairs for the party :).

24 pairs of Mickey and Minnie all ready!

 This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from the Domestic Goddess Wannabe.

With love,
Phay Shing