Thoroughly knead the butter, add the sugar, and continue kneading until white and fluffy.

Add the floury ingredients, and mix well.

Take out 1/3 the dough and knead food coloring (red) into it. Set aside 1/4 of the remaining dough, add the matcha green tea powder and knead it in.

Knead the dough until the food coloring is even throughout. Wrap each dough piece separately in plastic wrap, and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes or more.

When the dough is well chilled and is easy to handle, shape the parts of the cookies. Make sure to leave all the dough except for what you are currently working with in the refrigerator.

Roll the red dough out to about a 9 cm by 12-15 cm rectangle. The dough is soft, so I recommend working with it while sandwiched between sheets of plastic wrap.

Roll the green dough out to about a 3 cm x 12 to 15 cm long rectangle.

Roll out 1/5 of the uncolored dough about 1 mm thick and 9 cm by 12-15 cm in size (to match the red dough. Roll out 1/6 of the remaining uncolored dough out to 3 cm x 12 to 15 cm (to match the green dough). Set aside the remaining dough.

Place the uncolored dough rectangles on top of the red and green doughs respectively.

Press and cut the green dough into 2 equally sized portions over the plastic, using a ruler. You'll end up with 2 dome-shaped strips as shown in the photo.

Press and cut the red dough into 2 1 x 1 cm strips and 2 5 x 2 cm strips, over the plastic wrap, using a ruler.

＊Shaping the flower petals＊: Form the strips cut in the previous step so that the red and white (uncolored) dough parts are layered together, as you form the dough into a log while wrapping it in plastic. (Refer to Step 26 onwards for a more detailed explanation).

Lay down the 2 strips of green (leaf) dough with a 2mm gap in between them. Place the petal dough log on top.

Roll out the remaining uncolored dough from step 8 into a 12 cm x 12 to 15 cm rectangle, and place the Step 13 dough assembly in the middle.

Wrap tightlly so that there are no gaps. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze until hard.

After the dough is well frozen, slice 7mm thick. Cut right through the plastic wrap in one go to make the slices nice and neat. Start preheating the oven just before you start slicing the cookie dough.

Line the cookies up on a baking sheet carefully, so the dough doesn't crumble. The cookies will expand, so leave space between them.

Bake at 170℃ for 20 minutes, Avoid handling them for a while since they'll be very tender. Transfer to a rack to cool after they have set a little.

Having lots of these cookies is bright and cheerful.

I made these for Mother's Day on May 8, 2010. I arranged two types this time.

I used 5 g of sweet purple potato powder.

How about giving these purple roses as a gift too?

Stack up 1 cm thick pieces of dough at a slight angle. The following steps explian how to make sure the uncolored and colored dough are layered properly.

Using plastic wrap, roll up the dough as if you were making a sushi roll. Make sure not to stretch the dough lengthwise as you do this. (Keep the length between 12 and 15 cm.)

Stack the 1.5 cm wide dough strips on top of one another to hide the overlaps as shown in the photo. Visuallize the flower shape you're forming while keeping an eye on the cross section.

Press out the air using the same plastic wrap from before, and roll the dough in order each piece adhere to the others properly.

Stack up another 1.5 cm wide piece of dough while hiding the overlaps, roll it up in plastic wrap, and form a log.

Use the last 2 cm wide piece to cover the seams as shown in the photo, and wrap the formed log tightly in plastic wrap.

The petal dough is now complete. Now just set it on the leaf dough strips as shown in Step 13.

This is what a cross section of the flower made followin Steps 27-33 looks like.

This is what they look like baked. I think the cookies look more beautiful if you don't let them brown.

I wrapped the cookies up and gave them as gift for Mother's Day.

Feel free to go nuts once you get the hang of it! Play with the number of petals and width. I used sweet purple potato powder and rolled out the dough to 1.5, 2.5, and 3 cm for the version in this photo.

The leaves turned out a little thinner and longer than the recipe. Please show me your original creations everyone!