Flower Cookies: Lemon Shortbread
Tender and buttery lemon shortbread flower cookies are not only charming to look at, but delicious to eat. They’re also surprisingly easy to make. Even if you can’t get hold of any suitable flowers, this lemon shortbread is well worth making.
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If you have flowers in your garden, it’s likely that some of them are edible. I adore using fresh flowers in my culinary creations. They are not only beautiful and fabulous for decorative purposes, but they are often sweetly scented with a delicious, if subtle flavour.
Can You Bake Edible Flowers?
A cake decorated with fresh flowers looks stunning. But did you know that you can bake edible flowers too? They work particularly well pressed onto biscuits and cookies prior to baking. Welcome to my lemon shortbread flower cookies.
What Flowers To Use
First off, make sure you know your flowers before using them. Some flowers are poisonous and others just don’t taste very nice. Feverfew, for example, look really pretty, but tastes way too bitter to eat on a sweet biscuit.
Some edible flowers have a lovely flavour whilst others are quite subtle or don’t really taste of anything much at all.
Here’s a list of the ones I used for this batch of lemon shortbread flower cookies:
- brodiaeas (Triteleia laxa)
- cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus)
- evening primroses (Oenothera biennis)
- marguerites (Anthemis spp)
- ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare)
- pinks (Dianthus spp)
- pot marigolds (Calendula officinalis)
- rose petals (Rosa spp)
- yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Pansies and violas are brilliant, though hard to get hold of in the height of summer.
It’s best to use unsprayed petals and blooms from your garden, but you can buy them online too. Pick them early in the morning, but after any dew has dried off. They’re at their best used soon after picking, but will keep for a couple of days in the fridge. Just place them in a plastic container first.
Some flower petals such as roses and carnations have a slightly bitter heel. It’s best to remove these incase anyone is sensitive to bitter notes.
Here are a couple of more in depth guides to edible flowers from Garden Organic and the RHS.
Roses shrink a lot. All flowers shrink a little, but roses particularly so.
Leaves
Whilst not exactly flowers, edible scented leaves make a lovely contrast. Small mint leaves, scented geraniums and lemon verbena are particularly good.
Lemon Shortbread Flower Cookies
Flower cookies really? Absolutely. A plate of delicious lemony shortbread decorated with pretty flowers is sure to delight whoever sees them. That’s certainly my experience anyway. They’re perfect for garden parties, Mother’s Day, birthday celebrations and edible gifts.
Yes, the flowers do lose some of their colour and vibrancy and they shrink a little too when baked, but they still have a lovely bijou quality. What better way to get some of your five-a-day.
This is a classic egg-free shortbread recipe but with added lemon zest and edible flowers. If you don’t count the salt, it only contains five ingredients.
When making shortbread I always use the traditional recipe of 1:2:3. That is to say one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour. It’s as simple as that and super easy to remember. You can use whatever quantities you like.
I made these shortbread biscuits with my favourite baking flour: wholemeal spelt flour. But it’s fine to use other wholemeal flours or even plain instead.
You don’t need nearly as many flowers to decorate these lemon shortbread biscuits as you might think. I collected loads and then had to discard most of them onto the compost heap.
How Long Do Flower Cookies Last?
You can keep shortbread flower cookies in an airtight container for up to a week.
Flower Cookies: Step-by-Step
These flower cookies are a lot easier to make than you might think. It’s a simple shortbread recipe with flowers. No need to faff around with egg whites or anything else, just simply press the flowers into the shaped dough prior to baking.
You’ll get nineteen biscuits from the quantities I’ve given in the recipe card at the bottom of this post. Just up the quantities using the 1:2:3 ratio if you’d like to make more.
Because of the 1:2:3 principle, I find it easier to measure my quantities in ounces rather than grams. But don’t fret, I’ve given both measurements in the recipe.
For small quantities such as these lemon shortbread flower cookies, I prefer to use a good old fashioned bowl and wooden spoon. If you prefer to use an electric mixer, that’s absolutely fine.
Step 1. Cream Butter & Sugar
Make sure your butter is soft. It’s possible, but not easy to cream butter straight from the fridge. Take it out of the fridge an hour or so before you need to use it.
Cube the butter and place in a large mixing bowl along with the sugar and salt. Cubing the butter makes it easier to mix.
Cream the two together until the mixture is light in colour and fluffy in texture.
Step 2. Add Lemon
If you can find organic lemons, use one for this recipe. Citrus are sprayed with all sorts of chemicals, they are also waxed so that they keep longer. This is not the case with organic lemons. If you can’t get organic, use unwaxed and if you can’t find unwaxed give your lemon a really good scrub with soap and warm water.
Finely grate the lemon zest into the bowl. I find a microplane* is excellent for this purpose. It’s one of my favourite and most used kitchen tools.
Cream the mixture together until the lemon is fully incorporated.
Step 3. Make Dough
Sieve the flour into the bowl. If using wholemeal flour, you might want to discard the largest pieces of bran. If doing this, ensure you use a wide mesh sieve. All of my wholemeal spelt flour went through the sieve.
Work the flour in to the creamed butter mixture as gently as you can until it all clumps together. Gather the clumps together with your hands and bring it together to form a dough.
Knead it very lightly until smooth, then roll out on a hard surface. It’s best not to use any additional flour for rolling. However, if your dough is a bit soft and sticky, place it in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge for twenty minutes to firm up. I didn’t need to.
Roll the dough out with a rolling pin. Use a cookie cutter to press out as many rounds as you can.
Gather up the offcuts and roll again. Keep pressing out circles until you have no dough left.
Top Tip
No cookie cutter? No problem. Just find a suitably sized glass and use the rim to cut out your shortbread biscuits.
Step 4. Press In Flowers
Arrange your flowers on the cookie dough. Try to use the flattest flowers or parts of flowers that you can find. I had to cut off the base of some of them.
Press them gently into the dough so that they’re attached and lie flat. You can run the rolling pin lightly over the cookies too, but I found that wasn’t really necessary.
That’s all there is to it.
Step 5. Bake Cookies
Using a metal spatula, carefully transfer the biscuits to a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Place them a little apart as they will spread.
Place in the fridge for twenty minutes. This allows them to bake from cold so that they’re more likely to retain their shape.
Bake for ten to twelve minutes. The shortbread should be lightly golden, but not brown. The longer you bake them, the crunchier they will be. Don’t worry if they seem a bit soft, they will firm up on cooling.
As soon as the flower cookies are out of the oven, sprinkle with a little fine caster sugar. Then, using a spatular, carefully transfer them onto a wire rack to cool.
Other Edible Flower Recipes You Might Like
- Chocolate lavender cake
- Crystallised flowers
- Dandelion honey
- Elderflower champagne
- Rose cupcakes
- Rose syrup
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these flower cookies , I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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Choclette x
Flower Cookies. PIN IT.
Flower Cookies – The Recipe
Lemon Shortbread Flower Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 oz golden caster sugar (60g)
- 4 oz unsalted butter (120g) softened
- pinch sea salt
- 1 organic lemon zested
- 6 oz wholemeal spelt flour (180g)
- 1 handful fresh edible flowers
Instructions
- Cream the butter, sugar and salt together until light and fluffy.2 oz golden caster sugar, 4 oz unsalted butter, pinch sea salt
- Grate in the lemon zest and cream a bit more.1 organic lemon
- Sieve in the flour, then work it in until the mixture starts to clump together. Bring it together with your hands to form a dough and knead lightly until smooth.6 oz wholemeal spelt flour
- Roll out the dough to a thickness of about ½ cm (¼ inch). You shouldn’t need to dust your surface with flour, but if you do go lightly. If the dough is too soft and sticky, cover it with plastic and pop it in the fridge to firm up for twenty minutes or so.
- Use a 6 cm (2 ½ inch) cookie cutter to stamp out rounds. Gather the offcuts together and repeat the process until you have no dough left.
- Gently press the flowers into the dough circles with your fingers so that they stick. You may want to try running the rolling pin lightly over the top.1 handful fresh edible flowers
- Transfer the shortbread rounds onto baking trays lined with baking parchment. Place in the fridge for twenty minutes or so to firm up.
- Turn the oven on to 170℃ (150℃ fan, 338℉, Gas 3).
- Place the cold cookies as close to the centre of the oven as you can and bake for 10-12 minutes. The should be lightly golden, but not brown. Don't worry if they seem a bit soft, they will firm up on cooling.
- Sprinkle the flower cookies lightly with fine caster sugar, then transfer onto a rack to cool.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
I’m sharing this recipe for lemon shortbread flower cookies with Sew White for #CookBlogShare.
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Has anybody frozen these after baking?
Hi Mary. I’ve not tried it. I’m not sure how well the flowers would defrost. I’d be interested to find out though.
These are so beautiful – they would make perfect wedding favours!
Yes, wouldn’t they just? You can’t have too many flowers at a wedding. Jolly good idea Sisley.
I saws this recipe the other day on social media and told my mum about it, we love flowers and gardening and the idea of adding a touch of the garden to your bakes is wonderful, certainly going to be giving this recipe a go as its too stunninig not to.
Absolutely, there’s something very special about using garden flowers in food.
These are just the prettiest biscuits Choclette. I adore them xx
Totally agree kate. And they are so simple to make. Time to get bold and use some of your garden flowers.
Wow these are gorgeous – and you’ve made it look so easy! Thanks for sharing… one to try over the summer for sure.
Yes do try Jo. Everyone will be so impressed with your flower cookies.
these are so pretty choclette. I don’t seem to have a dab hand at making these. somehow they never seem to turn out as buttery and light as i’d like. ah well …
Oh no Sherry, that’s no good. The key with shortbread is to handle the dough as little as possible.
These cookies are so pretty, a real taste of summer.
Thank you Janice. They’re proving to be very popular.