These lavender shortbread cookies have a delicate, sweet fragrance of summer; are crisp, buttery and melt in your mouth. They are the perfect summer shortbread to serve with a cup of tea!

I know what you’re thinking; shortbread cookies are a holiday cookie, best served in the winter months with an assortment of nuts, chocolates and warm spiced drinks. But these buttery floral lavender shortbread cookies tell a different story. With a sweet lavender fragrance of summer and a buttery melt in your mouth crisp cookie; they are the perfect shortbread to change the myth of a holiday cookie. Don’t you agree?!

I love baking with lavender! Actually I love lavender in general, this beautiful plant is full of beauty and health properties.

A long time ago I dreamed of having a hobby lavender farm and it reminds me of a time when I used to live in South Africa in Clifton Beach. The streets and pathways are lined with bushes full of lavender and as I’d wait for the bus I’d rub my hands through the plants to let the oils of lavender be a natural perfume on my skin.

Lavender comes from the mint family so it’s not strange to be cooking and baking with lavender. It’s been a popular herb in the Mediterranean, Middle East and India where it was historically used for its scent in baths, clothes and hair as well as its medical properties. Today lavender can be found across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America. With its beautiful flowering buds, alluring sweet scent and extensive uses it’s no wonder this plant’s presence has spread across the world.

I have a few lavender plants spread in my backyard and at the cottage, but I struggle to get full beautiful blooming buds (with the lack of sunshine here in Canada). It’s okay though, I know just how special lavender is and keep a bag full of dried buds for my cooking and baking. You can find edible lavender buds at bulk food stores and organic specialty stores.

Baking Tip:

Make sure your butter isn’t too soft when you are ready to bake, you can put the tray of unbaked cookies into the fridge for 10 minutes or so to harden the butter again. When the butter is too soft it spreads out of the cookies as they are baking.

Happy Baking, I hope you love baking with lavender as much as I do. 🙂