Christmas is coming, I hear. I'm not
saying another word, but I truly hope you've been good this year.
I felt like baking something festive
and since I have an impressive amount of dried lavender (I have nice
neighbors, what can I say?) just waiting to be used, I thought what
the heck, let's live dangerously! After countless hours (more like 10
minutes or so) of online research my mind was made: shortbread
lavender it is.
Ingredients:
350 grams (1 1/2 cup) room temperature
butter
130 grams (2/3 cups) fine sugar
25 grams (1/4 cup) powder sugar
20 (2 tbsp) grams dried lavender
5 grams (1 tsp) lemon zest
400 grams (3 1/4 cups) flour
pinch of salt
Directions:
Chop the lavender or use a coffee
grinder to get it to a fine consistency. Sift the flour, set aside.
Cream the butter, caster sugar and salt
in a mixer until light and fluffy. Add the lavender and mix to
incorporate.
Slowly add the flour and mix well.
Mixing is complete when there are no visible lumps of butter in the
dough.
Form the dough into a disk (or two, if
you want it to cool faster), wrap it in plastic, and chill it in the
refrigerator for at least an hour.
Preheat you oven to 180ºC (350ºF) and
place rack in center.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the
dough to 3/4 cm (1/4-inch) thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut the
dough into the desired shape and (using a spatula or a wide blade
knife) transfer the cookies to a baking pan lined with parchment
paper.
Roll the excess dough into a ball and
repeat the process until you have used it all.
Bake for about 15 minutes until pale
and barely golden, then remove from oven and cool completely before
serving.
