SHORTBREAD COOKIES with LAVENDER LIME GLAZE
I was hanging out with two lovely friends and we all got a craving for flaky, soft shortbread cookies. I happened to bring over a jar of French blue lavender when I was visiting, so I thought that would make a really yummy glaze to go on top - woo boy, was I ever correct.
However, while we had the craving, the lazy afternoon mood kept us from wanting to take on a huge task, so I looked up a three ingredient shortbread cookie recipe and was not disappointed.
I found this recipe on The Comfort of Cooking, who originally adapted the idea from Dine and Dish. I would say that I then adapted it from Comfort of Cooking, because I needed to add about another ½ to ¾ cup of flour to the mix. I also used cake flour instead of all-purpose to give it a little extra fluffiness. Here is my adapted recipe:
Ingredients for Shortbread Cookies:
¾ cup of powdered sugar - sifted
Ingredients for Lime and Lavender Glaze:
¼ cup of blue lavender buds (make sure they’re edible)
The juice from two whole limes
¼ cup of powdered (or more if you want a sweeter taste)
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F if it’s a slower heat, 350 degrees F if your oven cooks a bit faster. If you’re at a higher altitude, make sure to lower by 25 degrees F and use regular all-purpose flour. Otherwise you’ll have weird scones on your hands, and not delicious cookies.
Soften the butter in the microwave in 10 second intervals so it’s soft, but not melted. Add a stick at a time while mixing in the powdered sugar - or you will have a snowapocoplyse in your kitchen.
Start adding the flour in at this point. I would start with two cups and then add until you’re able to form a ball in your hands without it sticking too much. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap, or in a ziplock bag and put it in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes to let it set. If you’re in a hurry chuck it in the freezer for 10 minutes.
After it’s chilled for a bit, sprinkle a generous amount of powdered sugar, not flour, on flat surface so you can roll the dough out to about ¼ of an inch thick. If you have a biscuit cutter, go ahead and use that, I found a water cup that did the job just fine.
Make sure to line your baking sheets with parchment before placing these little uncooked delights on them. You can use a fancy Silpat, or just straight up parchment paper.
Cook these puppies in the oven for about 15 to 25 minutes. Again, it’ll depend on your oven. I will say, don’t depend on the tops of these guys to tell you when they’re done. At 15 minutes take a spatula and lift one up to check the bottom. The top tends to stay a beautiful light butter color.
Let them completely cool before adding the glaze. While they do that, let’s make the glaze!
To make the glaze, get a small sauce pan and place it on a low heat. (Prepare for your whole kitchen to smell amazing). Put the lime juice in the sauce pan with the lavender buds and allow to slightly heat up. Keeping the pan on a very very low heat, slowly add in the powdered sugar while whisking continuously. Make sure to get out any clumps of sugar. It should have the consistency of a slightly less viscous syrup.
Allow the glaze to cool for about 5 minutes, unless it’s freezing where you are. You don’t want it to be boiling hot when you dribble it on top of the shortbread basically, nor do you want it to solidify! It ain’t frosting.
I use a little spoon to add a very thin layer of the glaze on top of each cookie. The glaze should be a really pretty pink to lilac color - making you feel super fancy. I recommend earl grey tea with these, or a really lovely lemon balm tea.
I hope you enjoy!! Tag me in pictures on instagram and twitter if you give these a go!
