Gluten Free Lemon Lavender Cookies
Friend, let me introduce you to the softest, most delicate and naturally sweet cookies you may have ever had.
These gluten free lemon lavender cookies came together through inspiration, a little creativity and a whole lot of blessing. My family thoroughly enjoyed them and I hope your family and friends do too!
It started on the Sabbath…
Last Saturday, on our Sabbath, my husband and I took the kids to a local park in the town we live in. The locals like to go to this park and feed the ducks bread. These ducks also have ample space and lots of green grass to graze on as well as a man-made stream that flows through this park to swim in.
The lavender was in full bloom, glowed with colour, and smelled amazing. I am always awakened to the beauty of God’s creation on the Sabbath in a way that I am not really on other days. His creation comes alive as well as His beauty and majesty.
We picked a couple of these blossoming herbs, sniffed them and took them home. I had a bag of dried lavender flowers sitting in the pantry and the smell of these aromatic medicinal herbs sparked my inspiration for these soft gluten free lemon lavender cookies.
The health benefits of Lavender
Lavender is native to the Mediterranean and North Africa; a flowering herb from the mint family. Most people think of lavender in personal care products or applying it topically through it’s oil but it can also be used in baking and cooking and has been for centuries.
English Lavender is the sweetest and most commonly used in cooking. I had some local Spanish lavender on hand and that worked fine.
Lavender contains:
- Vitamin A
- Calcium
- Iron
You won’t be getting much since we’re using a small amount but it’s worth noting these little flowers are health giving. Lavender is also a natural relaxant. In cooking, a little goes a long way!
Gluten Free Lemon Lavender Cookies
I needed a base to work off for these cookies and one of them was that I wanted them to be gluten free. I’m using blanched almond flour for this recipe.
The other part of this recipe base that was important was that I didn’t want to use sugar but honey instead. I stopped buying and using white sugar years ago in favour of healthy natural sweetners. Honey is one of those natural sweeteners I use all the time in the kitchen but honey heated above a certain temperature can actually be toxic to the body.
So, I had to find a way to sweeten these gluten free lemon lavendar cookies without putting the honey into the dough to be baked.
So I decided to make a glaze of butter and honey to spoon over each cookie after they came out of the oven.
This glaze is what makes these cookies so soft, moist and fudgy.
They might look hard and crumbly when they come out of the oven but the glaze softens these cookies surprisingly so that you will want to savour each bite.
The final touch of grated lemon zest ties the flavour together, complimenting the citrus notes of the lavender flowers.
This recipe makes 12 cookies.
Gluten Free Lemon Lavendar Cookies Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of blanched Almond flour
- 50g/1.7oz (about 3 1/2 Tbs) of softened butter
- 1 level Tbs dried lavender flowers
- The zest of 1/2 a lemon
- 2 Tbs honey (optional)
For the glaze:
- 1 heaped Tbs of set honey (not runny)
- 1 heaped Tbs butter
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper
- Pour almond flour and dried lavender into a large mixing bowl
- Press butter into the dry ingredients and form a ball
- Pull off 2 inch chunks with your thumb and index finger then roll into a small ball
- Place on baking tray
- Repeat until you’ve finished the dough
- Press each cookie down gently with a fork
- Bake for 10 minutes
- While the cookies bake, gently heat the honey and butter in a pan on the stove
- Pull out the cookies and spoon the glaze mixture liberally over each cookie
- Grate lemon zest over each cookie
- Serve and enjoy!
Note: Lavender is a strong herb and some might find it a bit overpowering. You can half the amount in this recipe if you want a little less of the strong smell.
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I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Just a heads up, this was my first time baking from your recipe. Although the recipe was simple it wasn’t detailed enough for me to follow thoroughly and I had to guess/assume the quantity I needed for the butter; I first put in 3 and 1/2 Tbsp but it wasn’t even barely enough, so I added 2 sticks and 4 Tbsp of butter for the dough to shape better. As well, the cookies weren’t exactly sweet, nutty, and earthy as I was hoping; the taste had a savory nuttiness to it that, for some reason, reminded me of a seasoned sausage even though I added the glazed honey and lemon zest over it after the cookies baked. Was there anything that I overlooked and misunderstood within the recipe?
I’ve updated the recipe. It should be 1 part flour to half a part of butter (2:1 ratio). The honey I used was set so when you scoop 1 tbs it is more than if you used runny honey. This recipe is lower on the sugar so while we were happy with the sweetness of these, some people might find it not sweet at all. It also depends on the type of almond flour. The almond flour I use is fresh and quite sweet. I’ve added honey to the batter as optional as well. I hope that helps!