This was a spur of the moment recipe, made to use up one leftover egg yolk I had in the fridge. I’d never tried a shortbread recipe with egg yolks before, but I found that it really helped combine all the ingredients – resulting in a sturdier and less crumbly biscuit. It also gives a lovely soft and delicate texture. I added lavender because… well, it’s one of my favourite ingredients. And such a delicate flavour works wonderfully with such a delicate biscuit! 
I found this beautiful French lavender at my local market. When I got home, dozens of dried lavender buds were left at the bottom of my bag and I’m going to leave them there because it smells amazing! 
Lavender Shortbread Biscuits
Delicious and delicate lavender shortbread. Makes 16-20 biscuits
Ingredients
- 160 g plain flour
- 100 g unsalted butter, chilled
- 75 g caster sugar
- A pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 tsp dried lavender
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 free range egg yolk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 170c. and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
- Blitz all the ingredients together (except to egg yolk) in a food processor until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add in the yolk and mix again until a soft dough is made.
- Turn the dough out onto a flat, clean surface and roll to about 1cm thick. Use a cookie cutter or upside down glass to cut out the biscuit shapes and place them onto the baking tray.
- Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, checking and turning the tray around half way through, if needed, to make sure they bake evenly.
- Once they are lightly golden, remove from the oven and let them cool on a cooling rack before eating. Enjoy!
These biscuits make a lovely and unique gift too, they will keep up to 3-4 weeks when kept in an air-tight tin. 
I made this: – doubled the receipte and added lemon zest and juice. Worked well. Thank you for the receipe.
Would these work with lemon zest in too? I feel like they’d make a nice addition to the lavender
definitely! lemon and lavender are a good match.
At last! A recipe that does not require refrigeration before rolling/cutting! Every bit as delicious as the last recipe I used, well actually must better!
So glad you liked it, Toni!
We have so much Lavender in our garden I just had to make something with it, I was so happy to find this recipe, it’s amazing even when using fresh lavemder, I’ve made so many batches in 2 weeks but i’m about to make more for my work friends! Thank you for sharing your recipe :)
Lovely – I baked these today and they taste delicious. A very nice subtle taste and nice and crunchy. Thanks for the recipe :)
So pleased you enjoyed it, Angie! Thanks for letting me know :-)
So glad you enjoyed them, Angie! :-)
Beautiful,. they look so pretty and delicate! I love leftover bakes, they are usually the best ones in my opinion :) This is going to sound really stalkerish, but are you at the Roman baths in your profile picture? It just caught my eye as I love it there!
Haha yes! You have a good eye. I was there visiting the Bertinet kitchens on a bread baking course :-) Lovely place
Never knew egg yolks had such an effect on shortbread. That’s a very good tip I’ll keep. Photos look so amazing!
Thanks Mariana! It was my first time using them in shortbread but I might have to use them from now on. Or just make some every time I have a spare egg yolk :-)
simply stunning!
Why thank you!
Aimee – I love this! I’ve never used lavendar in a recipe before, and I don’t know why, because it looks amazing! Gorgeous photos too!
You should try it! The scent of lavender will relax you as you bake :-)
These look really light and crisp. I MUST get round to using lavender in the kitchen…….. Love the photos!
Thanks Kate! Yes, you must… I look forward to seeing some gluten-free lavender recipes!!
These are just too cute! Love them. I don’t really ever eat lavender, but I could definitely go for some of these.
These are gorgeous and would have been awesome with my afternoon cup of coffee!
How cute and delicious! As much as I love lavender I’ve actually never tried baking with it, but this has definitely persuaded me.
These look so pretty and elegant. I can only imagine how wonderful the aroma must be. I often end up with an extra egg yolk or two, particularly after making meringue frosting, so I have a feeling I’ll be trying these soon. Thanks for sharing!
It’s the perfect recipe for using up egg yolks, hope you get to try them Jamie :-)
Yum! I love lavender in cookies or cakes these sound delish!
Me too, it’s becoming one of my favourite flavours, especially in baking :-)
We are shortbread-y twins this week, Amy! I made some lemony Shrewsbury biscuits last week that were a bit like this, but actually I considered adding in some lavender before deciding on lemon. It sounds like your lavender worked really well, and I love the idea of the bits that got stuck at the bottom of your bag!
That’s funny, Helen, because I was considering adding some lemon to my lavender shortbread! It’s only that I didn’t have any on hand that I decided not to. But I can just tell they would work beautifully together in a shortbread. I’ll definitely add some lemon next time :-)
I kind of hate lavendar smelling beauty products… BUT who knows maybe iI will find this tastes delicious?1 I have never tasted it before and these look really beautiful xxx
If you don’t like the smell of lavender, you probably won’t like the taste. For me, I LOVE both the smell and the taste… so this was heaven for me. But it’s not everyones thing :-) x
If you’re not a lavender fan, use grated lemon zest instead.
Gorgeous photos, Wow!
Thanks Vicky! I actually wasn’t too happy with these photos at first so it’s nice to hear that :-)