RECIPE: LAVENDER COOKIES!

I almost never crave cookies. It's true. As much as I never crave chocolate, I just don't crave cookies. I just don't crave sweets, period. I'd rather snack on a bag of chips or my beloved Cheetos which I have not tasted in at least half a decade. (Excuse me while I go shed a tear or two.) One morning Sean and I were walking around downtown and we started talking about ice cream sandwiches. I started talking about the cookie part of the ice cream sandwich and that was it. For the rest of the day, subconsciously, that's all I could think about. Even in the evening, as I sat in front of the TV with my mother, I actually found myself saying out loud "I want a cookie. Do we have any cookies?" and of course, we don't have any cookies in this house. Even if we did, they probably wouldn't be cookies I could eat unless they were homemade by myself and I hardly ever make cookies. Cupcakes or muffins yes, cookies no.

But the desire for a cookie was growing more and more with each passing hour until the very next day, I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed all the ingredients from the pantry and took the butter out of from the fridge. (I had actually just stuck it back into the fridge 30 minutes earlier from having let it set to room-temperature, doh!). 30 minutes did the trick though; it was soft enough that the KitchenAid could do all the work for me. Of course, I didn't want just any cookies, I wanted lavender cookies. And not just the typical lavender lemon shortbread cookies you see all over the internet but a chewy lavender cookies, reminiscent of a chewy chocolate chip cookie. I scoured the internet for a chewy lavender cookie recipe but came up short and that's when I decided to improvise...
DOM'S CHEWY LAVENDER COOKIES (makes 10 big cookies)
Ingredients:
- 1 1/-8 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 3 tsp dried lavender buds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. (I use the convection bake button on my oven.)
   
2. Whisk together flour and baking soda and set aside.
3. Using a stand-up mixer or electric mixer, beat butter and both sugar until pale and fluffy on medium speed, about three minutes.
4. Reduce speed and add salt, vanilla and eggs. Beat until mixed, about one minute.
   
5. Add flour mixture and mix until combined, about one minute. Stir in lavender buds with a wooden spoon or spatula.
6. Divide cookie batter into 10 balls using the 'two spoon' method onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10 minutes, edges will be golden but center will still be soft.
7. Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet for 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Store in airtight container or...
8. Spread honey lavender ice cream on one cookie and place another cookie on top.
   

Say what with that last step? Yeah, that's right...stay tuned!
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Note: I also made chocolate chip cookies for Sean and those are the ones you see above the lavender ones in photo of the mass cookies. They were good too. I just added 1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips and 40g of Lindt chocolate with Sea Salt broken into small chunks into the dough. The Sea Salt chunks were so good. Next time I'm making them with no chocolate chips and just the Sea Salt chunks. I'm quite obsessed with that chocolate. It's the ONLY chocolate I actually sometimes crave. Sometimes. Like maybe once every....4 months?

RECIPE: HONEY LAVENDER ICE CREAM

So here's the deal...if you're not a fan of lavender, you're not going to be a fan of this post. It's lavender-swoon-crazy as I'm crazy for lavender. I'm a bit of a fanatic actually. Lavender in its purest form (the bud of course) does something to me that only rivals the neroli blossom. It makes me calm. It makes me happy. Inhaling those lavender vapours just makes me peaceful. It really is true, lavender does have all kinds of medical uses. From headaches/migraines, insomnia, bug bites and even disinfecting walls/floor in World War II, lavender has a multitude of uses. I have many uses for lavender myself. I tend to use lavender for its medical purposes (as a migraine reliever) and also in culinary uses.

Enter honey lavender ice cream. Say what?! Yes, you read that right, honey lavender ice cream and it's more delicious than you think.

Taken from a recipe from Martha Stewart, I spent three hours on Saturday afternoon, making ice cream. It was the first day back to cooking since the heat wave started.

Mise en place:Individual ingredients beginning with 2 cups of whole milk:1/4 cup of dried lavender buds:1/3 cup of honey:5 egg yolks (save the whites for a huge egg-white omelette): 1/4 cup of white sugar:and 1 cup of heavy cream:Simple right? Okay, here go!

Directions: (these are my directions, not taken from the MS website. If you want her directions, check out the website)

1. Place milk, dried lavender and honey in a medium saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer. Cover saucepan with a lid and let steep at least 5 minutes. (I went with 10. I like my lavender a LOT.) Strain mixture, reserving flavoured milk and discard dried lavender. Set aside.
2. Beat egg yolks and sugar with the paddle attachment of a stand-up mixer (or whatever you've got) until thick and pale (about 3-5 minutes).
3. Add half the milk mixture to the egg yolk mixture and whisk until blended. (You're doing this so that the egg doesn't scramble from the hot milk.) Stir the egg-milk mixture into the remaining milk and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick (coats the back of a wooden spoon). (Note: I was really confused about this part. Like how thick should it be really? But it has to get pretty thick. You'll notice the difference when it happens. But stir constantly. Not a desperate, vigorous stir, just a lazy stir is fine. You just don't want to cook the egg-milk mixture.)
4. Once thick, remove from heat and immediately stir in cream. Strain into a medium bowl set over an ice bath. Let sit until well-chilled stirring mixture occasionally, about 30 minutes. (There's definitely no harm in letting it sit longer--if you're patient.)
5. Freeze in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. For my Cusinart Transfer to air-tight container and store for up to 2 weeks.

That last sentence is from Martha's website. You'll see if your ice cream lasts that long...it probably won't--especially if you make yours into ice cream sandwiches. Stay tuned!