Inspired by baker Loria Stern’s floral creations, we baked up a batch of our own spiced shortbread cookies using edible flowers on our new Slice Tray. This is a really delicious recipe and the flowers definitely added an extra taste dimension!
We foraged the edible flowers locally around our studio neighbourhood in Marrickville (Sydney) and found Violets, Lavender, Egyptian starclusters, Geraniums, Marigolds, Dandelions, Nasturtiums, Hairy Beggarticks and Chrysanthemums. You can also use soft herbs such as Chocolate-mint and Rosemary, and many local grocers sell edible flowers. If you do go foraging, make sure to know what you’re picking, as some flowers are not edible. A helpful app like this one can help you identify plants on your forage.
If you give these a whirl, make sure to share them with us on instagram with #bakedinmud.
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup of chopped room temperature butter
1/2 tsp ground cardamom, cinnamon or all spice
Edible flowers of your choice to decorate
Method
Mix the plain flour and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Add the chopped butter with a pastry blender or knife. Using your fingers crumble the mixture until it resembles fine bread crumbs – just as you would when making a scone dough.
Keep mixing until the dough slowly comes together into a soft ball. It takes a little time to come together, so don’t worry. Add a splash of milk or vanilla extract if you feel it’s too dry.
Once you have your dough in a ball, roll out in between two sheets of baking paper.
Use an egg cup, cookie cutter or anything round to cut out cookie rounds. We used our Espresso Cup. Add your flowers across each cookie as you wish, anything goes! Place more baking paper over the cookies and lightly roll with a rolling pin to ensure the flowers stick.
Place the cookies on a non stick sheet or the Slice tray and bake in the oven for 180ºC/355ºF until light golden brown.
Finish with a delicate sprinkle of caster sugar and cardamom and let cool before serving.
