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Earl Grey Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Earl Grey tea and culinary lavender give butter-rich shortbread cookies an elegantly subtle floral/lemony lightness.
Servings 3 dozen or so cookies

Equipment

  • parchment paper or silicone baking liners

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons loose Earl Grey tea leaves (see Kitchen Notes)
  • 1/2 teaspoon culinary lavender (a generous 1/2 teaspoon—see Kitchen Notes)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

Instructions

  • In a food processor, pulse together the flour, tea, lavender and salt, until the tea and lavender are just spotted throughout the flour.
  • Add the confectioners' sugar, vanilla and butter. Pulse together until a dough is formed. It may seem like it’s not coming together at first. Just keep pulsing and it will—but don't overdo.
  • VERY IMPORTANT STEP. Transfer dough to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put the bowl in the fridge for 1/2 hour.
  • After 1/2 hour, preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking liners.
  • Take dough from fridge and, using your hands, form balls of dough about 1 inch in diameter. This is where you will see the value of chilling the dough; it will form into balls easily, being quite malleable. You can pinch pieces off or add pieces on at will, and it will hold together beautifully.
  • Place dough balls on lined cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Using a flat-bottomed glass, press the balls to about 1/3-inch thick. The cookie disks may stick to the bottom of the glass, but you can easily twist them off. You can also slightly reshape imperfections and fix cracks in the edge. Wiping the glass on a paper towel occasionally reduces sticking.
  • Bake cookies, one cookie sheet at a time, for 12 to 14 minutes. Shortbread cookies stay pretty pale, only browning slightly around the edges, so don’t overdo. Just keep an eye on the edges.
  • Cool cookies on cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Kitchen Notes

Loose tea? Tea bags? We drink a lot of tea and always have a tin of Earl Grey loose tea in the house. If you don’t have loose tea, just cut open tea bags and measure out two tablespoons. It will likely be finer than loose tea, so your specks in the cookies will be less pronounced. As an aside, our favorite place to get teas is Harney & Sons. The New York-based company sources and blends Fair Trade Certified™ teas from all over the tea-growing world, and they ship for free. This isn’t a paid statement, just an admiration.
Where to get culinary lavender. You can find dried lavender flower buds in a number of specialty shops. We like the ones we get from The Spice House (no, this isn’t a paid product placement either—we shop there). As a bonus, their flat packs ship free. A little lavender goes a long way, though. Use a light hand or it will take over.