Need a beautiful, delicate dessert to serve with coffee, tea, or simply all by themselves? Enter: these Edible Flower Shortbread Cookies. They’re buttery and gorgeous with just the right amount of sweetness. Let’s bake!
Sometimes the simplest pleasures in life are the best ones. All it takes is butter, flour, sugar, and a few embellishments to make these edible flower shortbread cookies. Flowers are nature’s sprinkles, adding flecks of pink, yellow and blue. This is my first time making these cookies, but I foresee them making an appearance many more times in my kitchen — perhaps alongside a cup of hot cocoa.
Why You’ll Love These Cookies
This shortbread dough couldn’t be easier to whip up, and you probably already have all the ingredients in your fridge, with the exception of the edible flowers. You can roll and cut them out a few days before you’re ready to bake, eliminating time spent in the kitchen if you’re hosting or on a time crunch.
Serve them with tea and other finger foods like my easy vegetable rounds or asparagus in puff pastry.
Ingredients
- Butter - Use unsalted butter at room temperature. This will ensure your cookies are perfectly light.
- Powdered sugar - This blends beautifully into the softened butter.
- Vanilla - A little goes a long way!
- All-purpose flour - This acts as the base of the cookies along with the butter and sugar.
- Whole wheat pastry flour - If you don’t have this, you can use 100% all-purpose flour. For an earthier cookie, you can use 100% whole wheat.
- Salt - I always recommend salt in desserts — it brings out the sweetness!
- Edible flowers - The star of the show! Rose petals work particularly well.
- Granulated sugar - Sprinkle your baked cookies with a bit of sugar for the perfect finishing touch.
How To Make
- Make the shortbread dough. In a stand mixer, cream the butter and powdered sugar together, then add the vanilla. Once that’s incorporated, add your flour and salt and mix until just combined.
- Chill the dough. Scrape the dough from the mixing bowl and transfer to parchment paper. Place in the fridge for at least one hour. While that’s going, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Roll and cut the dough. This is easiest if it’s done between two sheets of parchment paper. Once the dough is ¼ inch thick, use a two or three inch cookie cutter to cut your cookies. To finish, press an edible flower into each disc and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake for approximately ten minutes, keeping a close eye on the cookies. You’ll want to remove them when the edges are just very slightly light brown.
Notes
- I used my Bosch mixer for the dough, and it was a breeze. If you are in the market for a new mixer, I cannot recommend Bosch more.
- Don’t overmix the dough, or you’ll have tough cookies.
- Looking for a list of edible flowers? How about this one?
- One of the flowers we used, which I do not recommend is calendula. While they are a beautiful flower, one of my favorites, they shrink so much in baking. They did not turn out very pretty at all! The rose petals we used were perfect though and very pretty.
- It helps to place the chilled dough between parchment for ease in rolling. You can always flour your countertop, but this will incorporate more flour into the dough, changing the final product.
FAQ
You can add the flowers in two ways. I baked mine directly on the cookies by pressing the petals onto the rolled-out dough. You can also press the flowers onto the cookies after they have baked, while they’re still warm.
The base of all shortbread cookies includes flour, butter, and sugar. The difference between regular shortbread cookies and Scottish ones ultimately comes down to tradition. Mary, Queen of Scots made the cookies famous in the sixteenth century when they were often baked with citrus peel and caraway. You may also see traditional Scottish shortbread cookies formed into a rectangular slab and cut into fingers.
Yes! The best way to make these shortbread cookies in advance is to roll and cut the dough and press in the flowers, then store the cookies covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. When you’re ready to bake, just take the tray out of the fridge a few minutes prior to baking to take the chill off.
What else can I make with edible flowers?
- Press into Laminated Pasta with Edible Flowers
- Sprinkle onto this Lemon Cornmeal Cake with Blueberries
- Use as a garnish for this Summer Peach Caprese Salad
Edible Flower Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 ¼ cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup whole wheat pastry flour You can use 100% all purpose if you prefer. You can even use 100% whole wheat,
- ½ teaspoon salt
- edible flowers We used rose petals. We also used calendula and bachelor buttons, but they didn't bake as pretty. That is why I only photographed the rose ones for the final shot.
- granulated sugar for sprinkling the cookies after baking.
Instructions
- Add the butter and powdered sugar to the mixing bowl with the paddle attachment. This can also be done with a hand mixer or by hand. Mix for about 1 minute to combine. Add in vanilla and mix for just a few seconds.
- I like this to be a one-bowl mix. To do this, add your flours over the butter mixture. Add the salt directly on top of the flours. With a spoon, mix the salt into the flours, just on top. With the salt mixed in, you can now mix it in with the butter mix. Mix this only to combine.
- The dough will need to be chilled before going further. Scrape it from the bowl and wrap it in saran wrap. Chill for at least one hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside.
- I rolled my cookie dough between parchment paper. If you don't want to do this, lightly flour your surface and roll there.
- Roll your cookies about ¼ inch thick. You can roll them thicker than this, but I like this thickness.
- Cut with your cookie cutter, and carefully move to the parchment-lined baking sheet. If the dough has softened too much and you rolled it on parchment, place it in the freezer for about 5 minutes, then it will be simple to move
- Once the cookies are cut, place your edible flowers on top. Pressing the flowers once placed with a sheet of parchment or your fingers.
- Bake until the edges are a very, very light brown. I don't like hardly any color on my shortbread.
- Once the cookies are baked, sprinkle immediately with granulated sugar. Allow them to cool slightly before eating.
Brooke says
Amy! These are beautiful!!! And I bet delicious!!
admin says
Oh, they were so good! Thank you Brooke!