To celebrate the first day of Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere… I’ve created a little floral-infused shortbread recipe to get the season off to a happy start.
The addition of lavender to these buttery, yet light little biscuits may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it works for me… you could always omit the flowers if you’d prefer, or substitute for perhaps some chopped nuts, some citrus zest or another flavour of your choice.
Here’s to a warm and wonderful Spring and a farewell to winter for another year.
Lavender White Chocolate Shortbread | Gather and Graze
- 125g/½ Cup Unsalted Butter
- 60g/½ Cup Pure Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar)
- ½ Teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste (or 1 Teapoon Vanilla Extract)
- 45g/⅓ Cup Cornflour
- 120g/¾ Cup Plain Flour
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
- Pinch of Sea Salt
- 2 Teaspoons edible Dried Lavender Flowers
- 75g Chopped White Chocolate
Pre-heat the oven to 160°C and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
In an electric mixer, cream together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla bean paste for a minute or two until smooth.
In a separate bowl, sift together the cornflour, plain flour, baking powder and salt. Pour in half of this mixture to the creamed butter mixture and stir with a wooden spoon to combine. Now stir in the lavender and white chocolate, before adding the rest of the flour and mixing until all combined.
Roll mixture into tablespoon-size balls and place on the baking sheets. Flatten slightly on top. Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes (removing while they are still quite pale in colour).
Allow to cool for a few minutes on the trays, before placing on a cooling rack to cool completely.
Gather & Graze 
oh yum. How good does that look!
Cheers Bridie, lovely to hear from you! 🙂
I love white chocolate and lavender! This sounds incredibly delicious..except I’m nursing a sore throat right now. so no chocolate and shortbread for me.
Jo, so sorry to hear your not feeling 100% at the moment – I hope you feel better soon! It’s never much fun when you have to forego chocolate and shortbread! 🙂
What a wonderful treat to celebrate spring! They look exquisite: delicate and chic like the season. I’m totally intrigued by your use of edible lavender!
When Stefano, my husband and official photographer of Flora’s Table, saw the first photo, he thought it was very beautiful and, believe me, it doesn’t happen often! 😉
Thanks so very much Francesca & Stefano! Your very kind comment will have me smiling right through the day (or perhaps even the whole week!) 🙂
These are definitely “my cup of tea”. I recently made some lavender/lemon shortbread but I love the addition of white chocolate 🙂
That’s wonderful to hear Judy! 🙂 I think these would be great with lemon zest added too – I’ll give that a go next time. Thanks, Margot
Feel like grabbing some and tasting;:-)
Feel free! 🙂
These look — and I bet smell — like the perfect cookie/biscuit to welcome Spring, Margot. I wish i was there with you to celebrate. Instead, I’m here, getting ready to hang the black crepe over my doors, burn incense in the cauldrons, and cue up dirges on the CD player. 🙂
Oh John, wouldn’t it be wonderful to just skip winter every year!? I’d be more than happy just to rotate through spring, summer and autumn! Perhaps we should all move to Southern Italy… or the Greek Islands!?
So elegant! Tender and beautiful photos, Margot! I adore the smell of lavender, pretty often add it to a tea 🙂
Thank you for your lovely comment… and what a lovely idea adding it to tea – I’m going to have to try that with a couple of loose-leaf teas I have at the moment… sounds wonderful!
Bravo for spring! Grief, doesn’t seem like six months since. Anyway, as I’m sure you probably realise shortbread has always been one of my faves – along with cheesecake. Just as well I don’t bake either of them! Bad enough with baking so many brownies. Talking of which, I spent all of 15 minutes sculpting the 2xHHog earlier. Shame I’ve ran out of both butter and coconut cream. Think I’ll use my recent jam to do the crumb coat tomorrow. Then try my hand at icing! Let’s face it, we’re in for longer nights. Ouch.
Must say I’m feeling rather relieved that winter is behind us… even though it won’t really warm up properly for another month or two. Just happy to see the blossom appearing and spring bulbs flowering… summer is on it’s way!
You really will have to post these hedgehogs Johnny – I’m totally intrigued to know how they turn out! I’m off to make some Chocolate Lava Cakes for dessert, not quite as fancy as hedgehogs, but deliciously chocolatey all the same.
How lovely, Margot! This shortbread must be so fragrant! I made a lavender cake this week 🙂 I love your styling with that trail of lavender!
Great to see your beautiful lavender cake Naina! Your photos are gorgeous. I really loved these little shortbread cookies and will certainly be making them again through the warmer months coming up!
What a beautiful spring celebration Margot, these cookies look so airy and light 🙂
Thanks Linda – they really are a lovely little light and crisp shortbread… and so easy to adapt with other flavours/ingredients.
Gosh what beautiful biscuits! I made white chocolate orange shortbread t’other day but it looked totally different to yours – I can’t wait to try this recipe and see what it’s like 🙂 Annoyingly I threw out some lavender flowers I had sitting in the cupboard for a-g-e-s … grrrr! I’ll have to go find some more.
Oh yum… white chocolate and orange sounds like a winning combination too! Did you use the zest or juice? Or both?? I’ll have to give these a try. 🙂 It’s hard to know how long to keep ingredients like lavender in the pantry… they must lose their potency of flavour/aroma after a while.
I just used zest which was enough for the flavour.
Thanks for reassuring me about the lavender – now I have justification for throwing it out!
🙂
These gorgeous little cookies are the very essence of spring. I do enjoy a hint of lavender. They look light and delicious
Thanks so very much Suzanne. The lavender flavour has somehow softened a little more the day after baking these… though it would have been hard to wait a full day before eating any of them!
ooh lovely – I have edible lavender flowers somewhere, next to the edible teensy roses, in the cupboard, bought but never used like the pulverised violets 🙂 however imagining your biscuits is enough for me, the recipe sounds like the Prince of Wales should put them on his Duchy Originals Label and pay your royal royalties 🙂
Haha, my edible lavender flowers were also sitting next to a jar of rose petals (also yet to be used!) 🙂 I get so inspired when I see these pretty and slightly unusual ingredients… but often get neglected on the pantry shelf as I bake the tried and tested family favourites!
Ooooh, I’d love to receive a few royal royalties on these! Thanks for your lovely comment Poli!
you are very welcome 🙂 I would pay to have these on my shelf!
Happy Spring, dearest Margot!! Love the gorgeous photos (so pretty!) and love the recipe. I never knew about edible lavender. Must hunt some down!
Happy Fall to you dear Azita! Must be so pretty up around NY right now with some of the leaves starting to change colour.
I bought a little jar of lavender suitable for culinary use (along with some dried rose petals… inspired by you!) not so long ago in a local kitchen store. I also used a couple of little sprigs of (English) lavender straight from our garden in an apricot jam last season, which turned out really lovely too.
Have you done your ‘Show & Tell’ yet? Hope it went/goes well and that it’s a fun night for all!
I love Fall but I’m already mourning the loss of the long days. Ah well! Seasons: they change! One must adapt. Ha ha.
I’m tickled pink that Persian cuisine inspired your use of edible flowers and you’ve inspired me in turn to try my hand at edible lavender. I do love the idea of using it in apricot jam. Hope to get a chance to try it.
The Show & Tell was good. It was exhausting preparing for it, but worth the effort!
xoxo
These are beautiful Margot! Often we bake to fundraise for our kitchen garden program, and these would be perfect with their delicate little flowers. You have inspired me to set the kids harvesting some lavender flowers to dry tomorrow!
That’s fabulous Sam! From what I can gather, English Lavender (Lavendula Augustifolia) is the best variety to use in cooking – it’s a little more subtle… less potent in the flavour it imparts. Hope the fundraising bake sale goes well! 🙂
How delicate and elegant. Lovely pictures and recipe, Margot.
Thanks so much for your lovely comment Darya.
Gorgeous, Margot!
Thank you Patty! 🙂
These look delicious! Lavender is the essence of spring, isn’t it? These cookies look perfect for welcoming a new season. Hope you are well, Margot!
Thanks so much Ngan – it’s been lovely to see so many spring flowers and blossom out over the past week or two… and many more to come!
Lavender+white chocolate+short bread=wow!!! I’ll take some please! 😀
Lovely – thanks Lori! 🙂