Lavender Shortbread with Homemade Lavender Sugar

How to Make Lavender Sugar

If you have English lavender growing in your garden and haven’t used any pesticides nearby then harvest it to make lavender sugar.
Ideally, pick the lavender on a hot sunny day, just before the flowers open. Tie the stalks together and leave to hang upside down for a few days until dry.
Break off the flower buds and add to castor sugar. Following the advice of Sarah Cook, you should combine 2 tsp of lavender flowers to 1kg of castor sugar.

Store in an airtight container
If you aren’t fortunate enough to have lavender growing in your garden, lavender sugar may be purchased from Yorkshire Lavender.
It is delicious in the following recipe.

Lavender shortbread

(inspired by Belvoir fruit farms recipe)

Ingredients

110g butter (at room temperature)
50g lavender sugar
175g plain flour
Lavender buds for decoration

Method

Cream together the butter and sugar,
Stir in the flour
Mix to a dough and roll out to approx 1/2 cm thick

Cut the shortbread into rounds using a cutter
Add lavender buds to decorate

Bake in a  preheated oven 160 degrees C, gas mark 4, for approx 15 mins, until just turning golden.

My cutters are all rather big, so I used a sherry glass to make dainty biscuits.

If you’ve enjoyed this, you might also like Ms Glug Jug’s Banana Bread Recipe.