Rooting around my favorite grocery store the other day, I was very excited to come across a new ingredient. I snapped it up, rushed home and tried it out! It’s a natural lavender extract paste made by Taylor & Colledge!
Over the years I have dabbled with a number of lavender inspired recipes, but have always used lavender plants from the garden to flavor. I’d never thought about using an extract paste – I never knew there was such a thing, but what a good idea! Whenever I have wanted a lavender scent or taste to a recipe, I have either used crushed flower heads in the ingredients or I have used lavender flavored water or honey (made by seeping lavender heads in hot water or honey for a couple of hours prior to using).
Many years ago, when I first started keeping bees, I planted many different types of lavender in the garden as in my mind lavender and honey are a match made in heaven. Bees love lavender. Well at least, most bees love lavender. My bees don’t – they fly straight over the top of my lovingly tended lavender plants and disappear over to the wild flowers on the cliffs surrounding me! So my idea of lightly scented lavender honey has never really come to fruition.
Anyhow, back to the lavender extract paste. I was very excited to try it out, but a little skeptical that it would taste like ‘proper’ lavender. But it does, it really does! You will need to play around with the amount of paste that you use, adjusting for your individual taste, but then you do with all flavorings. The makers suggest ½ a teaspoon of paste for 1 tsp of traditional extract – I used ¼ of a teaspoon to give just a hint of lavender.
These lavender honey shortbread biscuits are gluten free as they use almond flour and they are refined sugar free too. As I mentioned, I like the flavor combination of lavender and honey, but if you wanted to reduce further the amount of sugar that these lavender honey shortbread cookies contain you could omit the honey and add an extra tablespoon of granulated sweetener.
Lavender and Honey Shortbread
- Prep Time: 10m
- Cook Time: 15m
- Total Time: 55m
- Yield: Makes 16 cookies
- Category: Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons Butter
- 1 tablespoon Honey
- 2 cups Almond Flour
- 1/4 cup Granulated sweetener (Swerve, splenda)
- 1/4 teaspoon Lavender paste (adjust according to taste)
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat.
- Once the butter has melted remove from the heat and add the honey, sweetener, almond flour and lavender paste.
- Mix to combine.
- Form the dough into a cylinder and tightly wrap in cling film (plastic wrap). Chill in the freezer until it is firm - approx 20 minutes.
- While the dough is chilling preheat the oven to 180°c/350°F
- Remove the cylinder of dough from the freezer and slice into cookies 1/2 inch thick. If the dough crumbles when you cut it, it has not been chilled enough so place it back in the freezer for another 10 minutes.
- Place on a parchment lined baking tray for 15 minutes until golden and firm. Cool on baking tray before removing.
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