Lavender and lemon snowflake cookies

I've been making fancy-pantsy decorated cookies for festive occasions since Valentines Day in 1996 and have made them either for Christmas or Valentines or both ever since. I usually just make plain vanilla sugar cookies or chocolate ones, but this year, I've been doing a lot of cooking with lavender (plus there's a huge packet of organic lavender in my spice cupboard that was quite expensive so I'll be damned if I'm going to let it go to waste!) so I added lavender and lemon to my repertoire, plus I used a less-sweet more shortbready type of dough.

I had a hunch these might be good, but I really didn't expect them to be THIS good. They are divine, very lemony but with a hint of delicate lavender perfume. And with tiny pretty yellow and purple flecks in them ...I almost don't want to cover them with royal icing. In fact, I may make a second batch of smaller, round ones with nothing but a tiny dusting of icing sugar on top.

• 1 + 1/2 cups softened butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 extra large egg
• 1 extra large egg yolk
• 3 + 3/4 cups flour ( a little less if you have smaller eggs)
• 3 + 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
• 2 teaspoons crushed lavender flowers

In a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs, lemon and lavender and beat to combine.  Add flour, one cup at a time and beat until well combined, about 3 minutes. Roll dough into a log on top of a sheet of waxed paper, roll the log up in the paper, twist the ends and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 375F.

Roll the dough out to 2-3 mm thick and cut into snowflake (or whatever you fancy) shapes.  Transfer cookies to cookie sheet using a spatula. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly on pan before removing to a tea towel set on the counter to cool.

When I'm making a batch of cookies big enough to require  several goes in the oven using the same pans, I lay out all the cut cookies on sheets of aluminium foil for quick exchange between batches - I slide the foil with the baked cookies off onto the counter and slide the new dough-covered foil onto the pan and pop it straight back into the oven.

If you're going to frost these, allow them to cool completely before you do. I frost mine with royal icing made using my mum's old recipe. It uses raw egg whites. Most recipes I see these days call for powdered egg whites, which I suppose is more sterile. I'm not about to change though.

There are so many ways to decorate these nicely, but mainly you need to have two kinds of Royal icing - thick, for piping, and thin, for coating. To totally coat a shape, pipe an outline with the thick icing and then fill it in with spoon-fulls of the thinner icing,spreading it out with the back of a spoon.  I'll be decorating some this weekend and I'll have a new post on the decorating then.

Comments

[Jennifer]

I know what I'm baking this weekend! Thanks for the reicipe and ideas.

[Lyn]

Damn you're fast!

[Kalyn]

Great photo, and I can't think of anything harder to photograph well that white on white.

[Stephanie]

Ooh...so pretty!

I keep wanting to make things with lavendar, but I can't find my stash!

Gosh, that sounds vaguely naughty, doesn't it?

[Ruth]

Wow those looks so beautiful and gives me another reason to go out and get some more lavender. It's not so easy to find here but this recipe gives me incentive to go on the hunt.

Thanks for sharing.

[Lyn]

I haven't forgotten about the spectactular icing of the cookies! I'll be posting on that soon!

[Linda]

Made these today and like them very much. Thank you for sharing the recipe.

[Paula]

I have made these cookies a few times now and every time I get rave reviews.
They are now a staple in my house and I want to thank you for sharing that recipe!

[Anna]

Hi Lyn,

I'm dying to make these cookies - do you know where I can get the lavender from in Melbourne?

[lyn]

Anna,
I'd check at David Jones Foodhall or maybe at the Essential Ingredient at the Prahran market.

[Sandi]

Hi, I'm from Edmonton too....where did you get your lavender?

[lyn]

Sandi,
Planet Organic sells food grade lavender in their spice section

[Deborah]

Lex,

I just love your site and this recipe. Could this be used as a base for lemon bars?

Sincerely,
Deborah

[Shannon]

If you live in Canada, lok for an Epicure Selections rep...you can look one up at epicureselections.ca.

Prods are pricy but well worth it!!