Lavender Vanilla Shortbread Cookies

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A couple years ago, I coworker brought in some cookies that his wife had made. They were shortbread cookies made with lavender. And they were divine! I swear I ate a dozen of them! Since then, I’ve had it in the back of my mind to try and make my own sometime. Well a couple weeks ago, I came across a recipe that sounded delicious, so I decided to pull the trigger. I ordered some lavender and got to baking.

The cookies were . . . floral, to say the least. They were strong and seedy (it didn’t call for the lavender to be ground) and not at all like the lovely little treats I’d had previously. But I had all this lavender left, so I decided to try again. This time, I made up my own recipe using what I’d learned from the previous failure. And Lavender Vanilla Shortbread Cookies were born!

These cookies take a bit of time with the dough chilling time and the glaze hardening time, but they’re super easy and super worth it!

These cookies are light and delicate, slightly fragrant, and (most importantly) yummy!

Even my husband ate the whole cookie! (With the previous batch, he took one bite and then promptly dumped it in the garbage). Meanwhile, I had to exercise extreme self-control and only ate a half dozen few. After all, I was supposed to be making these as a gift for a lavender lover.

I know baking with lavender sounds weird, but you should seriously try these! They just might convince you otherwise! 🙂

Ingredients:

Cookies

• 8 oz butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp dried lavender, ground

Glaze

• 2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3-4 tbsp water

Instructions:

1. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add in vanilla and lavender and beat until combined.
2. With mixer on low, slowly add in flour until just combined. Do not over mix.
3. Flatten the dough into disk shape, wrap in plastic wrap and chill until firm (approximately 1 hour).
4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
5. When dough has been chilled, remove from wrap and cut cookies into desired shapes. Place the cookies on parchment lined baking sheets.
6. Bake cookies for about 15 – 20 minutes or until the edges begin to brown.
7. Transfer cookies to wire rack and allow to cool.
8. Once cookies have been cooled, combine the confectioners sugar, vanilla, and just enough water to make a thick glaze. Then glaze can be drizzled, spread, or dunked onto cookies. Allow the glaze 2 hours to harden properly.
9. Enjoy!

Notes:

• I ordered my lavender off of Amazon. I used a coffee grinder to grind it myself.
• A trick I learned for getting my cookies almost perfectly square, put the dough in a gallon ziplock bag. Use a rolling pin to even out the thickness as well as get the dough into all the corners. When the dough has chilled, cut off the bag and use a knife to evenly divide the dough into prefect little squares. Easy peasy!

Recipe courtesy of Jenny @ Love, Jenny (lovejennyblog.com)

http://lovejennyblog.com/lavender-vanilla-shortbread-cookies/

What do you think? Are you brave enough to bake with lavender?