JVH's Clear Conscience

Jeffrey Van Horne, aka JVH, contacted me last weekend to photograph his 'Clear Conscience' cocktail.

It seriously tasted even better than it looks.

Gin, Lillet, grapefruit essence and thick-sliced peel combined with some JVH magic.

*sigh* Why oh why did I decide to live 30km outside of Halifax? I could drink these all night long.

You can find JVH mixing this and other delightful original cocktails on Wednesday nights at Untitled Eats in The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and also at The Bicycle Thief in beautiful Bishop's Landing on Lower Water Street.

Halifax Food Bloggers Are On Pinterest!!

I love Pinterest. Like, LOVE LOVE LOVE it. So when Laura Oakley of Halifood came up with the idea to create a Halifax Food Bloggers Pinterest board I was all over it.

So far our line up includes - Purple House Café, Movita Beaucoup, The Local Traveler NS, Suzie The Foodie, Sue Morrison Baking Arts, Se7en's a Banquet, 9ine's a Brawl, Butter Versus Burpees, pepper + paint, Eat Me, Halifax, Mmm... is for Mommy, Eating Real, Being Real in Nova Scotia, AsheleyEats, eatHalifax! and Halifood, with hopefully more to come.

The night after the page was created, Gillian Wesley of The Local Traveler NS posted on Twitter (@GillianWesleyNS) that she was so inspired by our Pinterest board that she had decided to bake Sue Morrison's Stress-Free Bread Recipe. That same night I followed Gillian's lead and made Sue's Coconut Cream Pies in a Jar.

I don't know if you know this about me, but I am obsessed with Mason jars. I have a ton of them of every size and I will use any excuse to use them whenever possible. I even use one as a butter dish. When I saw Sue's mini jars of Coconut Cream Pie, I knew it was the recipe for me. 

I halved the recipe which made exactly four small jars. Also, I didn't have any chocolate cookies on hand so I zipped up some Maria biscuits in my food processor. 

If you love Pinterest, head on over to our Halifax Food Bloggers Pinterest board and check out the tasty, and often local, recipes and treats our Halifax food blogging community has to offer.

Happy pinning!!

 

Lavender Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Earl Grey Buttercream

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.