Matcha Shortbread

I got this beautiful shortbread tin as an 18th birthday present.  It was my first year of uni and it was the best birthday ever.  I mean, there wasn't a lot to compete against considering the fact that I spent my 17th birthday at a vet with my friend and her poor deformed rabbit.  Oh this makes a great side story. So before I start talking about my 18th birthday, I should tell you about Link, Sarah's poor rabbit.  We had all thought that Link had a tumor around his eye.  There was essentially a huge protruding bit above his eye socket, and his eyeball was no longer in his eye socket. Yes, it's gross, but it gets worse.  So we took Link to the vet, and the good news was that it actually wasn't a tumor!  What happened was that, oddly enough, all the food that Link was eating went through a passage to his eye! And that protruding bit wasn't a tumor, it was food! The vet had to basically remove the food by pushing it out of his eye socket.  It was, well, I feel like the word "disgusting" isn't strong enough to describe that traumatizing process.  Probably not the best story to put up on a food blog.  Ok, anyway, on a happier note, my 18th birthday.   A lot of people say this, but I actually do have the best friends in the world.  They had organized a scavenger hunt for me, with 18 things to do for 18 years of my life.  So thank you for one of the most amazing days of my life, Jess, Sarah, Alex, Elliott, Nat & Ross.  But uh actually this present was from Gemma and Alex, some other lovely people hah.

So I hadn't used this tin until last night.  It was time.  I'm not the biggest fan of shortbread because it's too rich for my liking and I actually couldn't eat these because I'm still on my gluten-free challenge, which, by the way, is actually a very boring challenge because it's not difficult because I love rice and polenta and I can survive without bread.  My English teacher in high school always said I had a problem with run-on sentences.  Anyway, other people said the cookies were good.  

Shortbread's one of those wonderful pastries with an incredibly memorable ratio -- 1, 2, 3 -- 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter and 3 parts flour.  Just remember the ratio and it's quite versatile.  Some recipes use a bit of rice flour and use other flavoring agents.  Despite my best efforts, I don't know why the beautiful designs of the tin were not imprinted on the cookies.  If you don't have a tin, just roll the dough out and cut out desired shapes with a cookie cutter. 

Ingredients
75g sugar
150g butter
200g flour
25g matcha powder
zest of 1 lemon

Method
Preheat oven to 180C.
Cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy.
Mix in the flour, matcha and zest.
Work with your hands if you need to until everything holds together.
*Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes to make it easier to handle later.*
If you have a tin, press firmly into a lightly oiled tin.  If not, just roll the paste out to about 5mm thick, and cut out rounds and desired shapes.
If you bake it in the tin you may need longer, like 30-40 minutes in the oven because it's thicker than 5mm.  If you have them in 5mm pieces then they may need only 15-20 minutes.  They're done when they're ever so slightly browned.