Lavender shortbread (lavender cookies)

Lavender shortbread biscuits are buttery shortbread biscuits with hint of lavender and a light crunchy texture. They are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee and also make a welcome gift for family or friends.

They are easy to make, quick to cook and are ideal for making in bulk and frozen. This lavender shortbread recipe is a variation on lemon and poppy seed shortbread and walnut shortbread biscuits, all of which are simply delicious. Why not bake a batch of each?

The quantities in this easy shortbread recipe are sufficient to make around 22 biscuits.

Shortbread ingredients and alternatives

• 175g butter - use either salted or unsalted butter depending on your preference and what you have in your fridge. Remove the butter from the fridge a little while before starting to make the shortbread so that it softens enough to be able to cream the butter and sugar together easily. If you wish to prepare vegan shortbread you could use a plant based margarine instead of butter.

• 4 teaspoons lavender flower florets - in this recipe I have used fresh lavender flowers. Simply pull each floret from the flower head until you have sufficient for the recipe. If you don't have fresh flowers you could buy dried lavender flowers but make sure they are a type intended for culinary use. The flowers will give your homemade lavender cookies a delicate floral flavour but if you would like a stronger flavour simply add more lavender.

• 90g caster sugar - caster sugar is finer than granulated sugar and I find that it gives the shortbread a better texture. If you don't have caster sugar you could place an equivalent amount of granulated sugar in a food processor and blitz until the sugar crystals have reduced in size.

• 175g plain white flour (plus extra flour for rolling out) - no speciality flour is needed for making shortbread.

• 50g cornflour - cornflour is the ingredient which makes these shortbread biscuits extra crunchy. If you don't have cornflour it is not essential, simply use extra plain flour instead.

Equipment needed

This shortbread biscuit recipe does not require any special equipment but the following are likely to be useful:

• Kitchen scales
• Food processor
• Large bowl
• Wooden spoon
• Sieve
• Pastry board
• Rolling pin
• Teaspoon
• Biscuit cutter
• Metal baking sheet
• Non stick baking parchment
• Wire cooling rack

How to make lavender shortbread

Pick a handful of lavender flowers and collect the florets by gently pulling each floret from the flower head one at a time.

Place the lavender florets in a food processor with the caster sugar and blitz for a few seconds.

Place the butter in a large bowl, add the sugar and lavender flowers and cream together using a wooden spoon. Alternatively, the butter can be added to the sugar and lavender in the food processor to mix before transferring to a large bowl.

Add the flour and cornflour to the bowl with the other ingredients and mix. Finish off by combining the dough with you hands to form a single mass.

Roll out the shortbread dough on a pastry board to a thickness of half a centimetre (about a quarter of an inch) and cut with a biscuit cutter or form biscuit shapes by hand. Place the biscuit shapes on non-stick baking parchment on a metal baking sheet. Chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes before baking to reduce the risk of the biscuits spreading while they cook.

To bake

Bake in batches at 150^oC, 300^oF, gas mark 2 until the biscuits just start to turn golden at the edges. The biscuits will still be quite pale when ready to be taken out of the oven. They may take around 10 - 20 minutes to cook but this will vary from oven to oven and batch to batch. Check regularly, say after 5 minutes, to avoid overcooking as the biscuits will cook quickly.

If you are baking the lavender biscuits in an Aga, place the tray on the grid on the floor of the roasting oven with the cold plain shelf on the second set of runners.

When the shortbread is cooked, remove from the oven and leave on the baking tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. The shortbread will be delicate and may break easily but will harden as it cools.

Tips

1. If you are making biscuits of varying sizes I recommend cooking in batches of similar sized biscuits as they will have a similar baking time.
2. Check the lavender shortbread regularly to avoid overcooking.
3. The biscuits will still be soft when they are ready to be taken from the oven. They will harden and set as they cool down.
4. The shortbread biscuits will stay fresh for a couple of days if stored in an airtight container. If you plan to keep them any longer it is better to freeze them and defrost as needed.
5. The unbaked shortbread dough can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for two to three days before rolling out and baking.
6. If you want to make vegan shortbread use a plant based margarine can be used instead of butter.
7. If you don't have cornflour you could use an extra 50g flour instead. The cornflour isn't essential but helps create crunchier biscuits.

FAQs

Other shortbread recipes

If you enjoy shortbread why not try one of these other shortbread variations?