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.

Naughty and Nice Cookies

NAUGHTY = Oulton's Applewood Smoked Bacon, 2 sticks of Butter, Chocolate Chips

NICE = Agave Nectar, Flax Seeds, Oats

Naughty and Nice Cookies (adapted from my mum's Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe - makes about 4 dozen depending on size)

DRY - 2 C flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp kosher salt

WET - 1 C (2 sticks) butter (soft/room temp), 2/3 C Agave Nectar, 1 C packed brown sugar, 2 eggs (room temp), 3 tsp vanilla

ADD INS - 6-8 strips of bacon (cooked crispy then chopped), 3 C rolled oats (instant or not doesn't matter), 1 C chocolate chips, 1/2 C flax seeds

• Preheat 350
• Mix DRY together in a bowl
• Beat butter until light and fluffy - add Agave Nectar - beat 5 minutes
• Add brown sugar - beat 5 minutes
• Add eggs one at a time - beat until well incorporated
• Add vanilla - beat 1 minute
• Mix DRY + WET by hand with a wooden spoon then mix in your ADD INS by hand (prepare for your arm to get tired)
• Drop by the teaspoonful onto a parchment lined cookie sheet - bake 11-12 minutes until lightly golden on top (cookies will look underdone but they'll set-up as they cool)

I learned a few things making these cookies, which is why I love playing around and experimenting with recipes.

1. This was my first time using Agave Nectar. My friends went to Mexico to get married two years ago and brought home a bottle for me but I had no idea what to do with it, so it's been sitting, waiting in my pantry, for me to build some baking courage.

Last weekend, I was talking to the fabulous Kathy Jollimore of eatHalifax! at the first meet-up of Halifax Baking Club. Of the many things we chatted about, Agave Nectar was one. I was inspired by our conversation so I did a little research and read that 1 C white sugar = 2/3 C Agave Nectar. I adjusted my recipe and after two long years - cracked open the bottle. I really didn't know what to expect. Turns out Agave Nectar is quite thick - like honey but not as sticky. I dipped my finger in to taste and I was instantly transported to family Christmases of long ago when I'd wake up before my parents, open my stocking (we were allowed to open our stockings before mum and dad got up) and find a bag of Roberston's Clear Toys inside. Clear Toys are hard barley candy that's been poured into toy-shaped molds on sticks - we called them never-ending suckers because sometimes you could start one on Christmas night and not finish it before you went to bed - you'd get up the next day and could keep going with the same sucker. Agave tastes like Clear Toys.

2. Butter beaten with Agave Nectar looks EXACTLY like mayonnaise. It was really weird to look in and see what looked like a huge bowl of Hellman's.

3. When you are adding packed brown sugar to a mixer, you should stop, or at least SLOW DOWN, the mixing speed (unless of course, you WANT brown sugar sprayed all over you kitchen floor?).

I took two dozen Naughty and Nice cookies to work and gave Sean two dozen to do the same. Everyone loved them and agreed that the combination of salty, smoky bacon, semi-sweet chocolate, chewy oats and crunchy flax was a winner (although it wasn't hard to tell since they were devoured in about 6 minutes). I think next time I would even up the amount of flax to 3/4 C or even 1 C for a little extra crunchy-goodness. So there you have it! Naughty and Nice Cookies.

Brown Butter and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't love chocolate. There. I said it. BUT - my friend Padde makes THE BEST chocolate chip cookies so I asked for his recipe (I'll be honest - I wasn't sure he would actually give it to me). You see, I believe, whether you love chocolate or not, you still need a wicked chocolate chip cookie recipe in your repertoire!! It turns out he uses the Magna Carta of chocolate chip cookie recipes - the almighty Nestle Tollhouse. He even stocks up on Tollhouse chocolate chips when he's in the States because you can't buy them here (that, my friends, is dedication). Now, if you're new to my blog then you probably don't know this about me but I LOVE a challenge, expecially when it involves taking a classic and much-loved recipe and messing with it to make something new.

Brown Butter and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies

1.5 C all-purpose flour

3/4 C cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

1 C butter

0.5 C minus 2 Tbsp white sugar

1 C dark brown sugar, packed tight

3 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 package (225 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 C nuts or Skor bits (optional)

Sea salt for sprinkling

• Place the butter in a pan - melt on LOW until browned - will take about 10-15 minutes 

I recommend using a silver coloured pan so you can see when the butter has turned brown. The butter will melt slowly - then it will get foamy, bubbly and loud - it will even spit at you - but it's not quite ready yet!! Be patient because it will quiet down again. Soon after this it will start to develop golden patches of foam - swirl it around so you can see the golden brown transformation underneath - stick your nose over the pan and breathe in - is it a deep caramel brown colour? does it smell like toasted nutty goodness? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you're good to go. Take the butter off the heat and cool 20 minutes.

While the butter is cooling -

• Whisk all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and kosher salt in a large bowl to mix - set aside
• Measure white sugar, dark brown sugar (pack as much as you can into your measuring cup!!), and vanilla into the bowl of your stand mixer - add cooled brown butter and beat on speed 6 for 2 minutes

• add an egg - beat one minute - add the other egg - beat one minute
• turn mixer to low speed or even speed 2 - add flour mixture gradually until mixed well - when all flour mixture is in, scrape down sides of bowl and beat on speed 4 or 6 for one minute
• add your chips (I used 75% Tanzanian chocolate that I was given as a gift - I just weighed out 225g on my kitchen scale) and mix them in by hand

• put your mixing bowl in the fridge for 45 minutes to an hour to firm up the dough
• roll the dough into balls a little smaller than a golf ball - you should get about 36 balls (depends on how much dough you eat) - put the balls back in the fridge to chill for 2-4 hours
• When the balls are chilled, preheat the oven to 375 - line a cookie sheet with parchment - when the oven is ready, take 12 chilled balls out of the fridge and space them out on the cookie sheet - sprinkle them liberally with sea salt and bake for 11-12 minutes - cool them on the sheet 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack (If you're using the same cookie sheet to bake the second batch, make sure it is COOL before you put the new balls on)
• eat one - eat another - then another - try to stop yourself - consider sharing (this may be impossible)