Lavender Shortbread Recipe

This buttery lavender shortbread has a beautiful subtle fragrance. The coloured sugar turns them into pretty little biscuits that make a perfect home baked gift!

Lavender Shortbread

Preparation time 25 mins plus chilling - Baking time 12 mins - Makes 30-32 biscuits

Ingredients

For the biscuits:

• 125g lavender caster sugar
• 225g butter, softened
• 300g plain flour, sifted
• 50g rice flour, sifted

For the sugar coating:

• 75g granulated sugar
• Lilac/purple food colouring

Method

• Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/gas mark 3. Grease two large baking trays and line the base of each with baking paper.
• For the sugar coating, place the granulated sugar in a small bowl, add a few drops of lilac food colouring and mix thoroughly until you have an even colour. Transfer to a flat plate.
• For the biscuits, sieve the lavender sugar into a large bowl and reserve the lavender for use later on (this prevents the lavender seeds getting crushed when creaming the butter and sugar). Cream the butter and sifted lavender sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Add the flour, rice flour and half of the reserved lavender seeds and mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Bring the mixture together using your hands to form a dough.
• Turn out onto a clean work surface and knead gently until the dough is smooth. Roll into four sausage shapes each approximately 4cm in diameter and then roll in the coloured sugar until well coated. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 mins.
• Unwrap the dough and slice into rounds approximately 5-7mm thick. Sprinkle some of the reserved lavender seeds on the top of each biscuit then transfer to the prepared baking trays. Bake for 12 mins until pale and golden. Leave on the baking tray for 10 mins to firm up before transferring to a cooling rack. Place in a gift box, jar or tin.

TIP: If you don’t have any lilac food colouring then you can make some by mixing together red and blue colourings. Mix the two colours together in a separate bowl before adding to the sugar. You can however, still add a few drops of colour to the sugar to make the perfect shade! Make your own lavender sugar Simply add 3 tsp dry Lavender flowers to 1kg white caster sugar, mix in a bowl with a wooden spoon and decant into clean jars, Kilner are ideal. Decorated with raffia or ribbon and tied with a label these make wonderful gifts and taste great on not just shortbread and cakes but stirred into Summer Berries also. Let the lavender infuse for two weeks before use and the sugar will keep well for up to 6 months.