Lemon Lavender Butter Cookies

I've made a few batches of these freezer cookies and they are delicious! I love that they are lavender scented yet lemon-tasting. Once they are baked up and wafting their lavender scent, no one will belive that they came out of your freezer! I like to bake 16 at a time, as that is what fits on my cookie sheet. I love to quickly bake them for dessert or right before a get-together.

This recipe is from Fix, Freeze, Feast: The Delicious, Money-Saving Way to Feed Your Family.

Lavender Sugar

Before making these cookies, you'll need to make some Lavender Sugar and cure it for a week so that the lavender scent fully saturates the sugar crystals.

My bag of culinary lavender is very large. I need to find some other uses for it!

 Simply combine 1 cup sugar with 1 teaspoon Culinary Lavender, and run it in your food processor until the lavender is shredded up and mixed in, less than a minute. You can strain the mixture, or pick out any larger remaining lavender leaves, but I just leave it. Store the sugar in a sealed container for a minimum of 1 week. I store mine in a mason jar.

This amount will give you enough for 1 batch of cookies, or you could mix up more to save for future baking (you know, while you have the food processor out and all...)

Lemon Lavender Butter Cookies (Makes 7 Dozen!)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (4 sticks) softened butter
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup Lavender Sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons lemon extract
• 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I use 3 1/2 cups white flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour)
• 2 Tablespoons Baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup Lavender Sugar (reserve for Topping)

In a stand mixer, combine butter and sugars. Add eggs, milk, and lemon extract. In a separate bowl, measure and mix flour(s), baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, blending well, but not overmixing.

Roll dough into 1 inch balls, coat in Lavender Sugar reserved for topping. I use myPampered Chef scoop, and handle the dough very lightly so as to avoid compacting the dough.

To freeze: Place balls on a rimmed baking sheet and freeze for 30 minutes. Transfer to freezer bags for longer-term storage.

To bake: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place frozen cookie balls on cookie sheet--no need to defrost (the recipe recommends using parchment paper, but I have done fine placing them straight on the pan). Bake for 8-10 minutes--I like mine to be just slightly browned at the edges. Remove to cooling racks to cool.

 Enjoy!