How to Bake Beautiful Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:
1. 3 tbsp fresh lavender flowers OR 1 1/2 tbsp dried lavender flowers ( Redman/Phoon Huat brand)
2. 1 cup butter ( leave to soften at room temp for about 10 mins)
3. 1/4 cup cornstarch
4. 1/2 cup icing sugar ( more if you have a sweet tooth)
5.1 tsp vanilla essence/vanilla extract
Makes approximately 30 or more cookies ( depending on the size of your cookies!)

Set oven at 170 deg c

Cookie Bake

Steps:
1. Cut up softened butter into smaller pieces using a knife
2. In a large mixing bowl, roughly mix together lavender flowers, softened butter, icing sugar and cornstarch using a spatula.
3. Place rough mixture into a food blender, and gently pulse the mixture. Stop blending and in small amounts, pour flour into the mixture in the food blender.
(NOTE: If the mixture becomes too caked up or dry, add in 4 tbsp of water, add water SPARINGLY)

4. Blend the ingredients till a ball of smooth dough forms.

5. Lay your work surface with a lightly floured grease paper and place the ball of blended dough onto the sheet and lightly knead the dough into a firm ball.

6. Wrap up the dough with the same grease paper and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
( NOTE: If you plan to make the dough in advance and serve it on another day, the dough can be frozen and thawed then baked in the oven on the day you wish to serve the shortbread cookies.)

7. After 30 minutes, take out the dough and let it thaw awhile.

8. Roll the thawed dough into a log shape using either your hands or using the existing grease paper.

9.With a sharp knife, cut the log into 1/2 inch rings so they come out as round, flat cookies.

10.Place the cut round cookie dough pieces onto a fresh piece of grease paper.

11. Place them in the oven at 160 deg c for 15 minutes.

(NOTE: Different ovens will have different heating styles so watch the cookies even as you set the time at 15 mins as they might burn before the stated time if you're not using a convection oven!)

Creative Suggestions/Ideas:
For kids' parties:
1. If you're baking these cookies with kids in mind, try coating the cookie surface with plain icing or coloured icing( recipe for cookie icing is below!)
2. cookies can be cute into various shapes using cookie cutters, simply roll out the thawed dough(step8) and use your hands or a lightly floured rolling pin to flatten out the dough into a sheet 1/2 inch thick) then use cookies cutters to cut out the desired shapes.
3. Using the icing as a food "glue", coat the cookie with icing, then dip the lavender cookies in rainbow sprinkles.

For formal high tea gatherings:
4. If you're baking it with adults in mind for a more serious high tea party, lavender cookies can be artfully outlined with icing sugar.( see below for icing sugar recipe)
5. Cookies can be cut out into simple heart shapes( see point 2) to give the lavender cookies a "chic" feel.
6. Serve the cookies with a light fragrant tea like green tea or chinese oolong tea. ( preferably no sugar added in the tea as this will override the delicate taste of the lavender cookies)

Icing Sugar Recipe:

1. 150g butter ( soften at room temperature for 10 minutes)
2. 250g confectioner's sugar
3. 1 tsp vanilla essence
4. 2 tsp water

Steps:
1. Beat the softened butter and sugar together with an electric mixer.
2.Once well-combined, add vanilla and water. Beat until smooth and creamy.

NOTE: All cookies that have been iced need to be stored in the fridge to prevent the baked products from going bad.

How to Bake Beautiful Lavender Shortbread Cookies

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