Have you seen the Wicked Movie as yet, that is currently playing in the theatres? I have never seen “Wicked” on Broadway but the movie blew my mind! I was absolutely enamoured by the performances of Ariana Grande, and Cynthia Erivo. I have been a fan of Ariana Grande’s singing for a long time. There is one skit on Saturday Night Live, that I am a huge fan of – where she is able to impersonate several singers and man is she on point, on tune and absolutely AMAZING!
Cynthia Erivo’s singing and performance was outstanding! Not to mention Jonathan Bailey who was phenomenal as well. I am ready to see the movie again.
Inspiration for the Matcha Sakura Wicked Sugar Cookie
The movie inspired me to make these Matcha Sakura Wicked Sugar Cookies. I took my classic sugar cookie and added matcha and sakura powder to it. Matcha is green and Sakura or Cherry Blossom powder is a light pink in color, and it perfectly represents the movie and the characters.
Elphaba or the green witch, is represented by matcha. Just like matcha is an acquired taste, so was Elphaba in the movie. People are surprised by her skin color, but as she adjusts in the university, she slowly becomes likeable. Galinda or Glinda is like the cherry blossom, delicate, sweet, and wants to be the popular one amongst her peers.
What is Matcha and Sakura? Where do you find it?
Matcha is a Japanese green tea powder that is made from dried green tea leaves. It is an acquired taste, and tastes grassy and slightly bitter. It is usually had with hot water, mixed well until foamy and then consumed.
I get the matcha powder from Aiya Matcha, you can find it here at Amazon as well. This is culinary grade powder that can be used for cooking or baking.
Sakura powder is made out of dried cherry blossoms. It is a light pink in color, and can be used to make lattes and drinks as well. Cherry Blossom is a popular symbol of Japan, and Sakura powder is a tribute to the traditional celebration of Spring and nature’s revival.
I got the Sakura powder from Amazon as well, and it is linked here.
Ingredients for the Matcha Sakura Wicked Sugar Cookie
The ingredients of the cookie are really very basic:
- All purpose flour
- Unsalted butter at room temperature
- Granulated Sugar
- Baking powder
- Salt (always salt to balance out the sweetness)
- Good vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- One egg
- Matcha powder : I have linked above as to where you can get the matcha powder from.
- Sakura Powder : I have linked above as to where you can get the sakura powder from.
How did I create the striped cookie?
The cookie is made by mixing the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. The we divide the dough into two equal parts and combine matcha powder in one part and cherry blossom powder in the second portion. Mix until cohesive and then wrap in a plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to firm up slightly. Roll out each cookie dough, cut them into stripes. Alternate the stripes to form a pattern of pink-green-pink-green stripes. Roll over it so that the stripes adhere to each other. Cut out shapes, put it in the freezer to firm up slightly so that they do not spread much in the oven, and then bake off in the oven until golden brown in color.
Royal Icing
Next is the FUN part – ROYAL ICING! I used to be so intimidated by ALL Those beautiful cookies that I would see on the internet. I would think – how are people SO creative to be able to make such wonderful designs on the cookies? IS IT THAT HARD? So a few years ago, I decided to dive in and give Royal icing a try.
Royal Icing has 3 ingredients:
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Meringue powder (easily available at Amazon)
- Warm water
Wilton has a really good recipe for royal icing that I roughly followed and I have adapted it in my recipe here. I found the water to be slightly less in their recipe, so I have adapted it to add more water in the recipe here. Main thing is to watch out for the consistency of the royal icing. The best part is, that the icing consistency can be fixed by adding more water if stiff, or adding more confectioner’s sugar if too runny and simply mixing it with a rubber spatula.
What piping bags and tools do I use for royal icing?
I use the piping bags, bag ties as linked here for the royal icing. Royal icing requires the piping bags to be flexible. Wilton piping bags are a bit stiff, so they do not exactly work with royal icing.
Tips for perfect royal icing for flooding and 3D designs
My recipe has instructions on how to put the royal icing into the piping bag efficiently, and to use a bench scraper to scrape all the icing to the bottom of the piping bag.
You want the flooding of the cookie to be of medium consistency, and to make the 3D designs on top of the cookie, the icing needs to be ever so slightly stiff. So separate out the icings into separate bowls, making sure that each bowl has its own mini rubber spatula and then add the colors to each bowl and mix thoroughly.
Gauge the thickness and consistency of each of the colors, and add water or sugar depending upon how stiff/loose the icing is. If the 3D design icing is a bit loose, the icing will spread on your cookie and the 3D design will be lost. Gauging the consistency of the icing comes with practice.
My suggestion is to keep a simple design as your first practice cookie, keep it to 2-3 colors and practice. Once you get the hang of it, you can move onto more complicated designs.
What food gel colors do I recommend? What edible gel pens do I recommend?
I use Americolor gel colors for adding color to my royal icing. I also used ChefMaster edible pens for the slightly intricate designs on the cookies. I bought the Americolor gel colors from www.bakedeco.com They have a 15$ off on their website for orders over 99$, so you can get a discount on these colors for a 50 pack. Again you can start off with their 12 color basic set first from Amazonand as you use it more, you can upgrade at a later point.
As you get more practice, you will realize how fun royal icing cookies are, and how fun it is to pipe different designs. I love the Rifle Paper Co designs, and have used it often to make cakes.
For the Wicked cookies, I use a ying yang design, to separate Elphaba and Galinda aka the green and the pink colors. I used the 3D designs for the black hat and the white wand, along with abstract cherry blossom designs on the top and the bottom from the movie poster. I also used the edible glitter dust on the wand for the shimmer. I love that look!
HOW LONG DO THEY LAST AND HOW TO SHIP THEM?
The best part about royal icing cookies is that they last for a long time, about 3 weeks, in an airtight container and they transport well too. You want to wrap them individually in plastic or parchment paper, and then put it in tins, if you want to ship them across the country. They make for excellent gifts for any holiday party. You can see the love and attention put into each cookie and they will surely be appreciated!
Hope this blog post helps with royal icing, and removes your fear of royal icing. I hope that I can do a tutorial or a video one day showing how to make the royal icing and pipe it on cookies. Now that would be fun! 🙂
Hope you all have a lovely time baking with your families, and enjoying the holiday cheer all around.
Here are some of the other cookie recipes that I have made over the years:
If you do make this recipe, please tag #thejamlab on Instagram and/or leave a comment on this blog post.
XO
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Matcha Sakura Wicked Sugar Cookie
Matcha Sakura Wicked Sugar Cookie
- 2 ¾ cups (360 gms) all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ cup (250 gms) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (2 sticks; 226 gms) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon culinary grade Matcha
- 1 tablespoon +1 teaspoon Sakura Powder (Cherry Blossom powder)
- Extra flour for rolling
- 3 inch round cutter
Royal Icing
- 4 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder
- 8 to 10 tablespoons warm water
- Americolor gel colors
- 12 inch piping bags
- 6 mini rubber spatulas
- Chefmaster edible pens
- Edible glitter dust
Get Recipe Ingredients
Method:
Matcha Sakura Wicked Sugar Cookie:
- In a medium bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk to combine.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, with a paddle attachment, add the butter and granulated sugar. Start mixing at low speed, gradually increase the speed to high, and whisk the mixture for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy and pale yellow in color.
- Add the egg and vanilla extract and whisk to combine. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl to bring the mixture to the center. Now add the flour mixture, in 3 batches, into the butter mixture and start whisking at slow speed until combined.
- The mixture should look cohesive, else use the rubber spatula to combine.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal parts into 2 bowls. Add one portion back into the bowl of the stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Add matcha and 2 to 3 drops of the Americolor food gel Avocado green and Mint Green colors into the mixture and whisk on low, slowly increasing the speed to high until the mixture looks cohesive. Remove the mixture back into the bowl. Clean the stand mixer bowl with a paper towel.
- Add one portion back into the bowl of the stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Add the sakura powder and 2 to 3 drops of the Americolor food gel soft pink color into the mixture and whisk on low, slowly increasing the speed to high until the mixture looks cohesive. Remove the mixture back into it’s bowl.
- Use a plastic wrap, add the matcha dough onto the wrap. Cover and seal properly. Flatten the dough into a square disc about 5×5 inches in diameter. Repeat the step for the sakura dough. Store in the fridge for atleast 2 hours or overnight. If left overnight, leave it out for 20 minutes for it to soften a bit, so it is easy to roll out the dough.
Rolling and baking:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Set 3 baking trays with parchment paper.
- On a clean work surface, sprinkle extra flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out the matcha dough into about ½ cm thickness. Cut into about 1 ½ inch thick strips, setting the rough edge pieces aside.
- Repeat the above process for the sakura dough.
- Alternate the matcha and sakura dough stripes to create a pattern. Gently press on the border of the matcha/sakura stripes to make it seem like one dough. Gently roll over with a rolling pin to adhere the stripes together.
- Dipping the 3-inch round cutter into extra flour, cut out circles, and place them on the baking tray. Place 12 cookies at a time on a tray. Place the tray in the freezer for 8-ish minutes.
- Bake in the middle rack of the oven for about 13 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown in color.
- While these cookies are baking, place the other trays with the unbaked cut cookies into the freezer, until they are ready to go into the oven. I bake one tray at a time for the best consistent results.
- Cool cookies completely on the baking tray for about 20 minutes.Repeat for the other trays.
- Use the remaining cookie dough to roll, bake off other cookies(if any dough is remaining) and bake them off using the steps above. Create marble cookies or separate the colored doughs to create the stripe pattern again.
- Place them in an airtight container until ready for royal icing.
Royal Icing:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, add the confectioner’s sugar, meringue powder, and 8 tablespoons of warm water to start off with. Start off slow so as not to splatter the sugar everywhere. As the mixer incorporates, increase the speed to medium speed, and whisk for about 7 to 8 minutes. Check for the consistency.
If the mixture is too stiff then you can add 1 teaspoon of water at a time, or if too runny, add about ¼ cup powdered sugar at a time. - You want to go with a slightly stiffer icing because we will be piping on top of the cookie.
- Separate out the icing into smaller bowls, depending upon the amount you will use for each color. For these cookies I used 6 colors in all.
- I used more pink and green icing for flooding each cookie, so that bowl had more icing compared to the rest of the other bowls. The other bowls have about equal icing for the remaining colors.
- For flooding, I need a more medium consistency of icing, so I add 1 teaspoon of water to thin it out ever so slightly.
- For the other icings, I want a slightly stiffer consistency so I can do the 3D designs on the cookie, once it is flooded with the royal icing. If the icing is too stiff, add 1 teaspoon of water and mix well to combine.
- Add the desired colors to all the bowls, and use a separate mini rubber spatula for each bowl to combine and get the desired consistency and color.
Applying royal icing on the cookie:
- Add each color into a piping bag, by putting each piping bag in a tall glass, having a large overhang of the bag around the glass. Put each color of the icing into each piping bag. Using a bench scraper, gently scrape all the icing all the way to the bottom of the bag. Use rubber bands to seal the tops. Keep them aside until ready to use.
Cut the tiniest piece of the tip of the green and pink bags – about 1mm and about 0.5mm for the white bag. With a steady hand, surround the rim of each cookie with the white royal icing and divide it into a ying/yang shape. Flood each cookie with the pink and green color on either side by piping inside the cookie. Tap the cookie on the surface, and shake it alternatively to even out the icing. You will see it smoothen out slowly. If it does not, use a toothpick to easen out the icing throughout the cookie until smooth. - Repeat for all the cookies. Let it dry completely, about an hour.
- For piping the designs, you need a steady hand, and cut just a tiny tip of the piping bag, about 0.5 mm. Using your creativity, pipe your designs on the cookie. I practice the design on parchment paper before I actually work on the cookie. Use the Chefmaster edible pens to put the intricate designs onto the cookie. I use an edible shimmer on the wand for Glinda. Let dry completely.
- The cookies will stay fresh, in an airtight container for upto 3 weeks. These cookies are very easily shippable.
