Lavender Shortbread with Lemon Sugar
Try this Lavender Shortbread with Lemon Sugar recipe, or contribute your own.
Try this Lavender Shortbread with Lemon Sugar recipe, or contribute your own.
- Carbohydrate 3.45365333359303 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 0.00240000000486922 g
- Fiber 0.0848000032238036 g
- Protein 0.0930133333576794 g
- Saturated Fat 0.000312000000632999 g
- Serving Size 1 1 cookie (5g)
- Sodium 0.0480000000973844 mg
- Sugar 3.36885333036922 g
- Trans Fat 0.00128800000261315 g
- Calories 14 calories
Step-by-step
- Heat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment.
- In a large mixing bowl combine the cookie ingredients with a fork or pastry cutter. To get a dough-like consistency, the butter needs to be soft but still cool. Use your hands to knead it like bread dough. Don't over knead it or the butter will melt and you'll have a mess.
- Roll the dough out into a ¼ in thickness and place in the fridge to cool for 15 min.
- Make the lemon sugar by blending lemon zest and sugar in a coffee grinder. Add more lavender at this time if you want but remember that a little lavender goes a long way.
- Remove dough from the fridge and slice into rectangles. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
- Allow to cool before sprinkling with lemon sugar.
Almond flour does the structural heavy lifting in this recipe by supplying fats and proteins instead of gluten networks. Without wheat proteins to trap expanding steam, superfine almond flour relies strictly on temperature control to maintain shape. Butter must remain cool and firm to prevent premature spreading during the initial bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If the fat liquefies before the protein sets, the cookies collapse. Kneading the dough demands a light hand; excessive friction warms the lipids and ruins the texture.
Equipment and Thermal Control
A standard metal baking sheet lined with parchment paper ensures even heat transfer. Rolling the dough to a precise quarter-inch thickness before chilling it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes solidifies the fat crystals. Use a coffee grinder exclusively for blending the lemon zest and granulated sweetener to pulverize the citrus oils into microscopic particles that coat the crystals evenly. Lavender extract requires strict measurement; half a teaspoon of dried lavender can easily overpower the palate due to concentrated volatile oils.
Make-Ahead and Storage Mechanics
Unbaked, sliced shortbread dough holds its shape well when sealed in airtight containers inside the freezer for up to one month. Bake frozen portions straight from cold storage by adding two minutes to the standard 10-minute bake time. Store fully baked cookies at room temperature in a low-humidity environment to prevent moisture absorption from softening the crumb.
