I recently hosted a garden party where we sat around a table and made lavender wands, ate lunch, laughed, and chatted. What a refreshing way to spend a summer day.

These fancy cookies are VERY easy to make. I know they’re not the healthiest dessert, but hey, it’s fun to splurge once in a while and have something totally yummy.

Lavender Shortbread Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup granulated sugar, extra for sprinkling
• ¾ lb unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3½ cups flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp culinary lavender blossoms (dried or fresh)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. In a cleaned coffee grinder, grind up the culinary lavender. If you don’t have a coffee grinder available you can finely chop it with a kitchen knife.
3. Use the paddle attachment of a stand up mixer to cream the butter and sugar together until combined. However, if you don’t have a stand up mixer, just use a hand electric mixer or a spoon.
4. Add vanilla and finely chopped lavender and mix.
5. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the salt and flour together and then add it to the stand mixer.
6. Mix until a dough forms. If using a spoon, this may take a bit. The dough will seem very dry, but just keep mixing until it all sticks together.
7. Turn dough out on to a floured surface and roll into a log roughly 2 inches in diameter. (If you want square cookies, flatten each side on the counter to form a square log or just roll out to make round cookies).