Soft, chewy sugar cookies infused with Earl Grey tea, lavender, and vanilla to taste like your favorite London Fog latte! Better yet, these cookies can be made without an electric mixer and with only 15 minutes of chill time (so you’ll be eating cookies in no time).
These drop sugar cookies are soft and chewy in the middles and crisp around the edges. The flavor is inspired by a London Fog latte, which is made with Earl Grey tea, steamed milk, and sweetened with vanilla syrup. Many versions incorporate a hint of dried lavender, which I’ve opted to include here for a little extra zhuzh, but you can certainly make it without if you prefer.
Earl Grey is one of my favorite tea flavors, rich black tea with a hint of citrusy bergamont, a citrus fruit that leans more towards the floral rather than the fruity. It’s the perfect compliment for the deep bitterness of the black tea.
As lovely as a cup of Earl Grey is on its own, a London Fog latte takes it to a whole other level! Made from steeped Earl Grey, topped with steamed milk and sweetened with vanilla syrup… the perfect flavors for a drink, or for a cookie! (Fun fact… London fog lattes were actually invented in… get this, Vancouver, Canada.)
I’ve played with baking with Earl Grey before in my Earl Grey shortbread cookie bars; the combo of the bold, malty black tea and citrusy bergamot goes so well with the buttery richness of the shortbread, so I knew tea-infused sugar cookies would be superb as well.
I first made these with slight adjustments from my M&Ms sugar cookie recipe. But ultimately I switched over to melted butter instead of creamed butter, as I felt it gave more consistent results (the creamed butter cookies looked vastly different the first batch out of the oven versus the third, and you know I’m all about consistency!)
I also toyed with the quantities of Earl Grey tea and dried lavender. With the lavender you need to be especially careful not to overdo it, lest your cookies taste like grandma’s perfume. I used a scant 1/4 teaspoon of dried lavender flowers for a whole batch, and that gave a super subtle floral note to the tea-flavored cookies, just enough without veering into potpourri territory. Honestly you probably get the most lavender flavor from the few buds sprinkled on top with the glaze (so try to limit it to 3 or 4 buds per cookie if you can, yes I did use tweezers for this why do you ask?)
The result is simply lovely. A vanilla-forward, buttery rich, perfectly chewy sugar cookie with a subtle Earl Grey flavor, plus a hint (just a whiff, really) of lavender. Topped with a drizzle of a milky glaze and a few lavender buds, these cookies are as elegant as they are delicious.
Here’s how to make them:
Because these cookies are made with melted butter, you can whip them up entirely by hand, with no electric mixer! The soft dough does need about 15 minutes to chill until it’s just firm enough to hold a ball shape.
Picture Perfect Cookies.
The key to getting the oh-so-satisfying ripples around the edge? Bang your pans a few times during the last few minutes of baking (you’ll probably traumatize your cat in the process, but it’s all worthwhile in the end). I usually set my timer for 10 minutes, then bang and rotate the pan 180 degrees. Do this at least once more, twice if you like, before the cookies come out between 12 and 14 minutes.
Also: swirl a cookie cutter around the outsides of the still-warm cookies immediately upon removing them from the oven. This will tuck in any less-than-round edges and make your cookies picture perfect.
Glazed Over.
The glaze is super simple, just powdered sugar and milk with a pinch of salt and a bit of the reserved tea-lavender powder mixed in. You could add some purple food coloring if you wanted to play up the lavender even more, but I kind of liked the organic white speckled appearance.
The consistency of powdered sugar glazes can vary greatly with a miniscule variance in liquiod amount. For that reason I recommend starting with 2 teaspoons of milk, then add more, 1/4 teaspoon at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.
For a perfect drizzle that holds its shape, drizzle a bit over the bowl and see how quickly the ribbons absorb back into itself. You want the glaze to sink back into itself within 4-6 seconds. Any quicker than that and the glaze is too thin, you won’t have the defined drizzles. You can add more powdered sugar, but you’ll need a lot more quantity wise to make up the difference in consistency. Much easier to start thick and slowly thin it down rather than the other way around.
I used a piping bag, you can also use a sturdy zip-top bag with the tiniest tip cut off, or a squeeze bottle fitted with a small round tip. Or go freeform, and just drizzle it Jackson Pollock style with a fork or a whisk.
Drizzle a few cookies at a time, then stop to place a few lavender buds on each one before the glaze dries. This glaze sets up pretty quickly, you probably won’t be able to glaze all the cookies first before they start to dry.
Could you make these without the glaze? Of course! Or you could go in the complete opposite direction and frost them or even sandwich them with a small batch of Swiss meringue buttercream to use that extra egg white.
Ingredient Notes & Substitutions
Earl Grey tea: I used tea bags from Trader Joe’s. I needed two bags to yield two teaspoons of tea. It was finely ground enough I probably didn’t need to mortar and pestle it (though the lavender definitely needs to be ground so it is evenly distributed).
If you use loose leaf tea, which is likely larger leaves, you’ll definitely need to grind it finely using a mortar and pestle or even a spice grinder if you have one. You could also pulse it with the granulated sugar in a food processor. If you start with loose leaf, you’ll want to be sure you end up with about 2 teaspoons after grinding, which is probably larger quantity of whole leaves to start with.
I also think this recipe would work beautifully with other kinds of tea, like English breakfast tea, your favorite Chai blend, or a coconutty rooibos.
Lavender: please be sure you’re buying organic, food-grade lavender for this or any other recipe that calls for it. Don’t go overboard with the lavender, especially with the garnish on top. You don’t want more than 3-4 buds max per cookie, otherwise it might start tasting like potpourri.
If you’re not a fan of lavender, you can easily leave this part out.
Dry milk powder: this is an optional ingredient, I feel it deepens the flavors and adds a nicely dairy-undertone that matches what an actual London Fog latte would taste like with the steamed milk. I also use a bit in the glaze to add structure without sweetness.
Powdered sugar: for the glaze, if you don’t like the cloying sweetness of conventional powdered sugar, try organic. I find it to be a much more pleasant sweetness, though the color will be more off-white than bright white, and you absolutely cannot skip the sifting or your glaze will be a chunky mess.
Vanilla bean paste: I’ve been using this more and more lately (a big ol’ bottle I got at Costco), but vanilla extract works fine too. I find paste to be more intensely flavored, so 1 teaspoon of vanilla paste would equal about 2 teaspoons of extract.
London Fog Sugar Cookies
Soft, chewy sugar cookies infused with Earl Grey tea, lavender, and vanilla to taste like your favorite London Fog latte!
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Preheat oven to 350 °F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
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Grind tea powder with lavender flowers using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder. If your tea is whole leaf loose tea you’ll need to grind it more than the fine tea powder that comes in most tea bags (but you still need to grind up the lavender).
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Measure out 1/2 teaspoon of ground tea powder and mix with 1/4 cup of sugar; you’ll use this as the coating for your cookies. Set aside another 1/4 teaspoon for the glaze.
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In a small saucepan or microwave safe container, gently melt butter until just barely melted. Add remaining ground tea powder (about 1 ¼ to 1 ½ teaspoons) and stir to incorporate. Let cool to lukewarm (about 90 °F or below).
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In a bowl, combine sugar and brown sugar. Add melted butter and stir until cohesive, there shouldn’t be a slick of butter on the top of the mixture anymore.
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Add egg and egg yolk and whisk until smooth; you shouldn’t see any streaks of unmixed egg white. Mix in vanilla.
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Whisk together flour, milk powder, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt in a bowl until evenly distributed.
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Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and fold until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain. The dough will be quite soft, but not sticky. Refrigerate for 15 minutes to allow it to firm up enough so it will hold a ball shape without slumping.
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Use a medium cookie scoop to scoop dough into 1 1/2-inch balls (approximately 40-42g of dough each), then roll in reserved sugar-tea mixture to coat.
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Transfer to prepared cookie sheets. Repeat with remaining dough, leaving 2-3 inches of space between cookies to allow for spread.
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Bake for 12-14 minutes or until tops are puffed and edges are just starting to brown. Give the sheet a good rap on the oven rack before you take it out of the oven to knock out any air (this produces more evenly flat cookies with the ripples around the edges). You can also swirl a round cookie cutter around the outer edges of the still-warm cookies to tighten up the shapes.
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Let cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
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For glaze, whisk together sifted powdered sugar with reserved 1/4 teaspoon of tea powder. Add 2 teaspoons of milk and whisk until smooth. Add additional milk, 1/4 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency is achieved (when drizzled, it should soften back into itself within 3-4 seconds). You can drizzle over cookies with a fork or whisk, or transfer to a piping bag or squeeze bottle for more precise decoration. If desired, sprinkle with a few lavender buds before the glaze sets (but go easy on this, maybe 4-5 buds max per cookie, lest your cookies start tasting like potpourri).
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Cookies are best enjoyed within a day or two, but will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or sealed in a bag in the freezer for up to 2 months.
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