Earl Grey Tea Cookies

I love Earl Grey tea - it has such a soothing, calm taste to it.
It was a friend's birthday, who is also a tea-lover, so I decided to try taking an average sugar cookie recipe and adding some Earl Grey goodness for her present.

The cookies turned out lovely - just enough tea flavour without being overpowering.

I love this recipe as it makes you look so fancy, it is super easy and contains ingredients that area easy to find and most likely already live in your cupboards.

What You'll Need (for around 35 cookies):

• Parchment paper-lined cookie trays
• A food processor
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1Tbps Earl Grey tea (about three normal size bags)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp room-temperature water
• 1/2 cup unsalted room-temperature butter

What You'll Do:

• In your food processor, add in all the dry ingredients
• Pulse until the tea leaves are a fine powder
• Add in your vanilla and water
• Slice your butter into the processor
• Pulse until the mixture has come together into dough
• Divide the dough into two tubes, about 6" long and 1" wide
• Roll the dough up in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes
• Pre-heat your oven to 375C
• Once the dough has chilled, slice the dough into disks, about 1.5cm thick
• Placing them three per row on your sheet, they do not spread, so you can place nearlyhalf the dough on one regular sized cookie sheet
• Bake for ten minutes or until the bottoms start to lightly brown
• Let cool for a few minutes on the trays, then move to a cookie rack
• Enjoy!

This recipe is flawless to double and the dough can last in the fridge for up to three days (just make sure it is wrapped tightly, so it doesn't dry out.
You can also try other flavours of tea, if you are not an Earl Grey tea fan. I have also tried this recipe with Chai Tea and those were delicious, too - I just added in 1 tsp of cinnamon to those, to enhance the flavour.

The STEWART SCORE:
Taste: 2
Appearance: 1.5
Ease: 2

Easy Chocolate Brownies

This recipe couldn't be easier, or tastier! These chocolate brownies turn out exactly how brownies should be - soft in the centre with a crispy crust on top. This recipe is definitely not low fat but they are super chocolatey, so a little goes a long way! I usually half this recipe as there is just two of us and a full batch is a lot of brownies!

What You'll Need:

• Cake tin - 12 x 9
• Electric mixture or hand mixture and medium-sized bowl
• 1 cup softened un-salted butter
• 1.5 cups white sugar
• 4 Large room-temperature eggs 
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup self-raising white flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (this is optional, but I find it makes this recipe go above and beyond...the way Martha likes it)

What You'll Do:

• Pre-heat your oven to 350F
• Grease your cake tin with butter or oil
• Using a large bowl and hand mixer (or ideally a mix-master) combine all the ingredients and mix until smooth and well combined
• Spread the mixture evenly in your baking tin
• Bake for 30
• Do not over bake as you want the centre to be ever-so-slightly soft and under-baked
• Let cool a little bit (as nothing beats a warm brownie) and serve with ice cream or whipped cream

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2
Taste: 2
Ease: 2 - the easiest recipe! Trust me.