Is there anything better than a nice cup of tea and a piece of shortbread? Yes there is! Shortbread scented and flavored with essential oils. I’ve been experimenting with flavors over the past 6-8 months. I’ve made some bizarre flavors such as black pepper-tangerine, lemongrass and grapefruit-sage, but my favorite shortbread flavor at the moment is lavender-lemon. Many essential oils are safe for internal consumption and Young Living products will always have the nutritional information label for those that are.
My recipe for shortbread is as follows:
1/2 cup old fashioned oats (ground to a fine powder is a spice/coffee grinder or blender, yeilding 1/4 – 1/3 cup oat flour)
1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter (cold, cut into 1/8″ slices
Pre-heat the oven to 450F. Mix dry ingredients together. Add your essential oil(s) of choice, usually between 5-10 drops of each flavor. Add butter slice by slice and mix on low until the ball of dough forms.
Grease the non-grooved side of the collar of a springform pan and place (closed) on a parchment lined baking sheet. Press the dough into the collar evenly. Cut out the center with a 2″ round cookie cutter (mine is a flower shape and it works just fine!) Leave the cut out center dough next to the springform collar on the parchment and replace the cookie cutter to the center of the dough making an open hole in the center of your dough. Open the springform collar, but leave it in place around the dough.
Bake for 5 minutes at 450F then reduce oven temperature to 250F and bake an additional 10-15 minutes. Remove shortbread from the oven and turn the oven off. Remove the springform collar and score the shortbread with a knife into wedges, only cutting halfway into the dough. Poke 6-10 holes in each wedge and return to the oven propping the door open slightly with a wooden spoon. Let the shortbread dry in the warm oven for about an hour. When cooled, break or cut the shortbread into wedges along the score lines.
Now pour yourself a cup of tea and enjoy! That’s what I’m going to do right now….
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