Before I got my hands on some very fragrant lavender that Heather sent me, I’d keep coming across a bunch of recipes that I thought would be perfect if only I had some lavender. I must have been longing for lavender so much that I found it in my blogging by mail package. Now I was faced with a new problem – I’ve only 10g of lavender, so I must make something absolutely worthwhile!
With the cookie craze that has enveloped the blogosphere, I pulled out my cookie book and stumble upon a lovely French shortbread recipe. I changed a couple of things and ended up with a flaky, crunchy shortbread – served it with fresh strawberries for a delicious late afternoon snack.
Lavender Shortbread
Yield: 16
Adapted from: The Little Big Cookies Book
1 cup / 150g flour
2tbsp cornstarch
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp lavender (I used dried)
¼ cup / 50g sugar
½ cup / 125g butter
½ tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 325F/170C and lightly grease a 9 inch springform pan.
- Sift together the flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt and stir in the lavender.
- Toss in cubes of chilled butter and blend together until they look like crumbs. (I made it this way as opposed to creaming butter and sugar together).
- Place the crumbs into the pan and press down with the hands or a potato masher.
- Now is when you can shape the edges with a pattern of your choice and pierce the dough uniformly to prevent it rising when it’s baking.
- With a knife, make 16 wedges, so that it’ll be easier to have 16 distinct pieces after it’s done baking.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until slightly golden.
- Cut pieces when it’s still warm along the lines that were made earlier.
- Transfer to a rack to cool.
Next time around, I’d probably bake it for 5-7 minutes less than the prescribed 25 minutes to have softer shortbread. And then drizzle it with white chocolate.
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Oh and what a pleasant coincidence – The first day of The Purple Foodie starts with Lavender shortbread!