Friday, May 20, 2011

Lavender Lace Sugar Cookies

Lovelies!

I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you! And if you are one of those rapture folk, and expecting to be zoomed up into the skies tonight, then I suppose you’re planning on super-special fantastic weekend. Personally, I’m expecting things to be slightly more relaxed around here. No zooming for me.

Today was my day to host our weekly mother’s group. I had so much fun putting a few snacks together, mostly due to the fact that I was trying out a new cookie recipe. It took a while to perfect so that meant that I got to eat lots of ‘oopsies’ that didn’t come out looking so pretty.

They are called Lavender Lace Cookies and they were so very tasty!

Earlier in the week my mom and I trundled over to the
Redmond PCC for a cooking class with Lynne Vea. She is a fabulous instructor and I adore her recipes. We took the “Northwest Spring” session and the menu included the following:

  • Chilled Green Pea Bisque with Dungeness Crab and Mt. Townsend Seastack cheese, 
  • Brown Butter Glazed Medallions of Salmon with Green Lentil, Balsamic and Candied Tomato Salad, 
  • Umpqua Valley Lamb Chops with Smoked Bacon and Tart Cherry Beurre Rouge, and
  • Strawberry-Viognier Sorbet with Lavender Sugar Crisps. 

And wine with each course.

Ah, I’m hungry just thinking about it! It was so delicious.

Anyway, true to form, I decided to make the desserts first and then attempt the other recipes later.
Here’s the recipe:

Lavender Lace Sugar Cookies by Lynne Vea

Makes 5 dozen small cookies

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 2 1/4 cups light brown sugar
  • 2 1/4 cups rolled oats
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup butter, melted but not hot
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon chopped culinary lavender (I used 1/2 teaspoon and thought more would be even better. Next time)
  • Turbinado sugar for sprinkling (didn’t have this so no sprinkling for me)
Mix together the flour, oats, sugar, and salt. In a small bowl, blend the egg with the vanilla and lavender. Stir this, along with the melted butter, into the flour/oat mixture. 

Set oven to 350 F (I’m making this part up since no oven temp was given in the original recipe but it seemed to work ok for me)

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (not wax paper. Foil worked ok too). Place small balls of dough (roughly the diameter of a dime) onto the sheet. Keep your dough balls small and at least 2 inches apart as they’ll spread like crazy. I did 8 cookies/sheet.

Bake for 5-7 minutes until just golden on the edges. 

Let the cookies cool slightly on the baking sheet then then remove the entire parchment sheet onto a cooling rack. Do not attempt to remove the cookies until they are completely cool. They should lift off easily and be crispy. 

These are best served immediately as they get a little chewy after a few days. But I’m of the opinion that  chewy is ok too. Store in an airtight container. 

Lynne served these with the strawberry sorbet and the combination was superb. But then again, it’s hard to go wrong with fruit/butter/lavender…

xxoo

Sonja