Lavender Lemon Shortbread Cookies (Gluten-Free + Vegan Recipe)

I live for anything lavender flavored, and these buttery shortbread cookies with a hint of lemon are no exception. And I’m not alone! Every time I’ve made them I’ve watched them fly off the plate in T-2 seconds. The best part? They’re friendly for just about any diet as they are gluten-free, vegan, and made with lots of love.
Why I Love Lavender (Besides How it Tastes)
The most common use I know of for lavender is in fragrance, cosmetics and in essential oils – but here’s my case for why you should eat it, too! Eating lavender can help relieve anxiety and stress, help you sleep, is naturally anti-inflammatory, and is great for hair and skin health.
Benefits of Lemons
Aside from being well known for their richness in vitamin c, lemons are alkalizing in your body and are a powerful antibacterial food. Ayurvedic teachings also praise lemons as warm promoters of gastric fire and for being good for your vision.
Delicious Gluten-Free, Vegan Lemon Lavender Shortbread Cookies Recipe:
Let’s get baking! Recipe makes 15 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ tbsp. dried lavender
- ½ t lemon extract
- ¼ t almond extract
- Zest of one lemon
- ¾ cup coconut oil (plus an extra pinch for greasing your cookie sheet)
- 2 cups gluten-free all purpose flour
- ¼ cup sugar in the raw (or cane sugar)
- ¼ tsp. salt
- Optional: powdered sugar for topping
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease your cookie sheet with additional coconut oil. Grab your food processor and measure out your ingredients. Important to note! The order in which you add ingredients to the food processor is very important for consistency of the cookies.
Blend dried lavender until it becomes like a flour, then add your raw sugar until it also becomes a fine powder. Then add your baking flour and salt to the processor bowl. Once processed, add lemon zest and give it a couple pulses just to incorporate the zest, but not enough to totally break it down. Finally, add the coconut oil and lemon and almond extracts. Pulse manually until the batter is clumping together and looks like play-doh (if you like working with your hands, you can also transfer the dry ingredients to a bowl and knead in the oil manually).
Shape your cookie dough into circles on your greased cookie sheet, and bake for 15-17 minutes – just until the bottoms and sides of the cookies are golden. Once cool, you have the option to eat them all on the spot or garnish with powdered sugar, more dried lavender, or lemon zest!
Enjoy these yummy summery cookies that are sure to please!


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