Celebrate Spring's arrival with Cherry Blossom Cookies. This easy to make cherry blossom recipe uses Japan's edible (pickled) ‘sakura’ flower – true, understated beauty to look at – sweet elegance to eat! You’ll love it, and can bring them with a cherry blossom onigiri bento box for sakura viewings!
Cherry Blossom Cookies
Spring is upon us – a super special season in Japan! Think Japan's famous cherry blossoms, and new season fruit and vegetables. New season means full of inspiration for cherry blossom sweet recipes. Spring's arrival means cherry blossom viewing or hanami.
With winter fading, it’s hanami time for friends, families and loved ones to enjoy a picnic under the sakura. A delicious bento box, sweet drinks and more-ish sweets make hanami special.
Cherry trees are everywhere in Japan. Literary the entire country turns pink for a few weeks in Spring. I miss Japan's spectacular sakura landscapes very much.
So I decided to make this sakura cookies which Andy and I grew to love. These homemade cherry blossom cookies are made specially for hanami and are incredibly popular in Japan.
You’ll love them too! This undetectably vegan cherry blossom cookies recipe is a picnic stopper – your friends will never forget them!
About this Cherry Blossom Cookies
If you’ve never tried cookies with edible flowers, you’re in for a treat.
Especially when you’re talking about pickled flowers! That’s right – I said it, edible pickled flowers! In cookies!!
Cherry blossom is edible. They are pickled with salt and carefully soaked in plum vinegar.
When sweet sugar cookies meet salted cherry blossoms, it creates a sensational balance. It's delicate, subtle and addictive!
I experimented with this recipe to get it just right – it’s easy.
Coconut Oil: I tried coconut oil and it worked. Mix it up till it gets creamy and white. I use organic and refined coconut oil. If you use salted butter instead of coconut oil remove salt from the recipe.
Sugar: I use organic raw cane sugar because I like the color for this sakura cookie recipe. Use unwashed sugar. Granulated sugar is for adding to the surface of sakura cookie dough. I use beet granulated sugar.
Where to buy pickled cherry blossom flowers?
Cherry Blossom Flowers: It's fairly complicated to make pickled cherry blossom flowers at home. It can be difficult to source the flowers. So I always buy either at Japanese grocery store or online.
Just One Cookbook introduces the online store for pickled cherry blossom flower that ships internationally. I would try that next time.
How to Make Cherry Blossoms Cookies
Cherry blossom cookies are super easy to make.
Pickled Cherry Blossoms
I've found the beauty of this Japanese cookie recipe is in preparing pre-pickled cherry blossoms. As you soak them in water, the flowers open up in the water!
Cherry blossoms are pickled with salt, and need to be soaked in water to remove it.
- Soak the cherry flowers in water.
- Drain water.
- Dry in a clean cotton.
- Collect broken flowers and stems. Cut them finely and add to the cookie dough.
Make Cherry Blossom Cookie dough
Add almond powder, raw sugar, soy milk and salt into a bowl. Gradually add coconut oil and mix it up with a whisk until it gets creamy and white.
Then add sifted flour and finely cut cherry flowers. Mix up with a spatula gently. Roll up the dough by hand and cover it with a plastic wrap. Then rest it in a fridge.
Situate 1 table spoon of granulated sugar on a plate. Add granulated sugar on the rolled up dough surface. Cut it out for 7 mm each. Then bake in an oven.
That's it! Serve with tea! I love them with matcha, and my partner loves it with green tea or English breakfast – it works with any tea, coffee, or just about anything else!
Tips for the Best Cherry Blossom Cookies
Dry the cherry blossom flowers on a clean cloth once you’ve removed them from the water.
Make sure you put the granulated sugar on the outside of the dough before you cut it into 7 mm each.
MIKLIA Recipes for Cookies:
Cherry Blossom Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter (100g, I used plant based butter or coconut oil)
- ½ cup raw sugar (100g)
- 2 cup flour (250g, rice flour or pearl barley for gluten free)
- ½ tsp salt
- 2½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ cup soy milk
- 1 tsp apple cider
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp flax seed
- ½ cup almond powder (50g)
Instructions
Preparation
- Soak flax seed into 2tbsp water and let it sit for 5 minutes.
- Soak pickled cherry flowers into water for 30 minutes. Dry them on a clean kitchen cloth after draining.
- Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a fine mesh sieve and sift into a bowl.
- Preheat the oven to 340 degree F.
Cooking
- Place butter into a bowl and loosen it with a whisk. Add sugar by dividing three times and grind it with the whisk.
- After the butter gets creamy and whiter, add soaked flex seed, vanilla extract and apple cider. Then add almond powder.
- Add ⅓ sifted dry ingredients into the batter. Change the whisk to spatula and gently fold the flour.
- Add ½ soy milk into the powdery part of the batter gently fold the flower twice. Add ½ sifted dry ingredients of the bowl into the watery part of the batter and fold twice. And repeat this again.
- Roll out the cookie dough for about 2 inches (5cm) diameter and rap it up. Rest the dough in a fridge for an hour.
- Add granulated sugar around the dough. Cut into 7 mm thick each.
- Gently put pickled cherry flower onto the cookie dough and bake pre heated oven for 15 minutes. If the cookies looked burning, put a foil on top and avoid to be burnt.
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