Lemon and lavender. Doesn’t that sound fancy? You would think so, but really its not. But, when you go over to a friends house and say, “I made lemon lavender shortbread” you will sound very dignified. But the truth it, this is one of the simplist cookies you can find. The gentle floral flavor of the lavender mixes beautifully with the tart lemony flavor to make a deliciously buttery shortbread.
How do we make this shortbread?
Well, it may be a suprise, but this is one of the quickest and simplist recipies I have developed. But the thing is, it doesn’t taste like it was easy.There is no chill time, and its a one bowl recipe which means less dishes! Well, I still have to do dishes because our dishwasher is broken, but if it weren’t then the clean up would be super fast. Anyway, back to how we make it. We start with creaming sugar and butter, a pretty basic step to any cookie. Then we add our flavorings and mix them in. Finally we add our flour and cornstartch, press it into the pan, bake it, and bam! Lemon Lavender Shortbread.
How to get a natural lemon lavender flavor:
When developing this recipe, I was worried it might taste like soap. I wanted to use the actual ingredients and not extracts because I wanted that natural flavor. I found some dried culinary lavender in my baking cabinet that I had used a while back for a cake. That would do the trick! Then the question was how much to use. Lavender is tricky because it is very strong. We only need a little bit. We grind up the lavender, because nobody wants to bite into a big chunk of lavender do they? Now lemon is a whole other story. Lemon is also quite strong, but very tiny compared to lavender. So we need lots of lemon. We get most of our flavor from the zest because to much juice will add too much liquid, and then the shortbread will be dense. So we add some juice, but mostly zest.
What’s in this shortbread?
One of the great thins about this cookie, is that it has very few ingredients. But what do these ingredients do?
Butter: Butter is obviously the key to a buttery shortbread. This recipe uses a lot of it to insure that.
Sugar: This wouldn’t be very good without sugar would it? As well as contributing to the taste, sugar adds to the body of this cookie.
Vanilla and salt: These balance out all of the different flavors
Lavender and Lemon: Of course we need to have lavender and lemon in these lavender and lemon cookies! I use dried culinary lavender, lemon zest, and lemon juice.
Cornstartch: Let me tell you, you NEED cornstartch. Without it, these are a crumbly mess. Shortbread should be a little crumbly, but it shouldn’t fall apart in your hands.
Flour: Finally, we have flour. This adds most of the base to the dough. Without it, we would have a puddle.
Lemon Lavender Shortbread
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp dried culinary lavender Ground up*
- zest of one lemon about a tablespoon
- 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 2 cups all purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a 7×13 baking pan with parchment paper. Make sure there is enough overhang to help lift the baked shortbread out of the pan in step 5.
- Using a mixer (handheld or stand) fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla, salt, lavender, lemon juice, and lemon zest and beat on medium speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides with a spatula and add the cornstarch and flour. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, and then turn it up to medium speed for 1 minute until dough clumps together.
- Press the dough into the lined baking dish. Try and get it as compact as possible. Dock* the top with a fork to prevent air bubbles.
- Bake the dough for 42-45 minutes or until slightly browned on the sides. The center should be soft, but not wet.
- Allow the shortbread to cool in the pan for 20 minutes on a cooling rack. Then lift it out of the pan and cut into squares. (Any size will work!) I like to trim the edges first to make them look neater.
- Allow to cool completely or enjoy warm! The cookies will firm up as they cool.
Notes
