Lavender Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Earl Grey Buttercream
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 at 7:01PM 
Ok, I need to be perfectly honest and upfront about two things.
1. Earl Grey Buttercream sounds good in theory, to me anyway, but I found it difficult to get the Twining's Earl Grey flavour, which I adore, to shine through without adding too much liquid to my buttercream. I used the Sweetapolita Whipped Vanilla Frosting recipe that I made last week for my Orange Cardamom Olive Oil Cupcakes and added 3 Tbsp of milk that I heated then steeped with two teabags worth of loose Earl Grey for 30 minutes. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.
2. The cookies in my photos are the SECOND batch that I made using Kristin Rosenau's recipe for Lavender Lemon Shortbreads which can be found on her lovely blog Pastry Affair. The thing is, I preferred the taste and texture of the FIRST batch I made in which I modified Kristin's recipe slightly. And so, THAT is the recipe I'm going to post. I should also note, that I made both batches without lemon.
I used this gorgeous culinary-grade lavender from Seafoam Lavender that I bought at the Seaport Market last weekend with Kris (@AJCrowley).
Lavender Shortbread Cookies (adapted from Pastry Affair)
45g sugar (regular white sugar, NOT icing/powdered sugar)*
1 tsp dried lavender buds
125g flour
1 tsp vanilla powder**
pinch salt
113g butter, room temperature
- crush sugar and lavender buds together with a mortar and pestle until lavender is well ground
- combine everything in food processor and pulse until dough ball forms
- remove dough from processor and do THIS*** then put dough in fridge at least 1 hour and up to overnight
- preheat oven to 350 - slice cookies 1/4 inch thick - bake 10 minutes or until edges just begin to turn golden - cool on sheet
*I loved the version I made with regular white sugar. I found them to be a little more coarse and a little more sandy in texture, plus, I thought the taste of lavender and butter was more pronounced.
**I buy Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Powder at The Paderno Store in Bayer's Lake for $15. It's great because you use it measure for measure like liquid vanilla without adding extra liquid to your baked goods.
***The CHOW Tip is perfect for someone like me who sucks at making cutout cookies. I found it very helpful because the roundness of the paper-towel tube prevents your dough from forming a flat edge while chilling in the fridge.
Lavender Shortbread. Pretty + Easy = Win.
Reader Comments (8)
These sound and look fabulous. When I bake with tea I usually grind up the tea extra extra fine with a spice grinder and then add it directly into the cookies or icing instead of steeping it. It's worked really well in shortbreads in the past
GAH!!! These are so pretty! I made lemon lavender shortbreads for school last week - it was a recipe show off type deal. I like to think I won. And now, should we have a rematch, I'm thinking some earl grey buttercream might help me win again. Even if other people don't think it's a competition.
What a beautiful blog you have..I have the paste..I have never seen the powder..(On my list:)
Ooh, good tip Clockwork Lemon!! I will definitely try that soon - I'm brainstorming a new ice cream recipe :)
Hmmmm... A much as I hate to say it Movita Beaucoup, I would advise against making my version of Earl Grey Buttercream and see if you can come up with your own. I couldn't really taste Earl Grey through the lavender in mine!! Back to the drawing board. The delicious delicious drawing board.