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These cookies are made to honor the Summer Solctice. Summer Solstice is the celebration of the longest day of the year, really the celebration of the Sun. It is a ceremony done especially in places that have long days of darkness and cold. It is surely a huge event in the Northern European countries but you can enjoy it in your own backyard wherever you live. Gather some edible flowers and make these delicious cookies to celebrate this beatiful time of the year!
The recipe is from the following source.
IMPORTANT! You can use any flowers that your heart desires just make sure they are edible. Many of the flowers sold in stores are cultivated versions of wild plants and might not be suitable for eating but even in the wild, not every plant is edible. Of course, do not pick from areas that have been sprayed. If you don’t have edible flowers, no worries. You can still make the cookies with the icing and just use the flowers for decorations on the side.
Having said this here is a list of flowers that might be helpful for deciding which ones to use: calendula, chamomile, clovers, native echinacea, wild iris, wild daisies, dandelions, lavender, wild roses, St John’s wort, rosemary, thyme, sage. I ended up using flowers that are growing in my garden right now. These were petals of chamomile, calendula, clovers, lavender and leaves of rosemary.
These are tasty sugar cookies and the icing works well with the cookies as well … it will harden in about an hour or so after you put it on. Also, the icing recipe uses some milk. I don’t think the milk is a big issue if you have the cookies out for a couple of hours but they should be refrigerated otherwise for storage. Of course, you can make these cookies without the flowers for a fun summer dessert, too.
RECIPE
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 1 & 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
- ¾ cup (12 Tbsp) softened butter at room temperature
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ cup brown or cane sugar
- 1-3 teaspoon minced organic thyme
- 1-3 teaspoon minced organic lavender buds
- 1-3 teaspoon minced organic rosemary
- 1-3 teaspoon minced organic sage
- a few crushed cardamom seeds
- pinch of salt
- edible flowers (please see note above)
Icing:
- 3 teaspoons milk
- 1 cup of powdered sugar
- grated rind of 1 lemon. ( I also added lavender buds to the second batch of icing)
- For colouring, I used store-bought natural food yellow dye or you can use turmeric or St John’s wort tinture too.
- Combine your milk and icing sugar. Slowly add in your colouring and mix until you find the desired colour/consistency.
Directions:
- Preheat Oven to 300 F for 20 minutes before you start baking.
- Beat flour, sugar, herbs (levendar, thyme, sage, rosemary, crushed cardamom seeds) and soft butter together until creamy. I did it by hand easily but you can use a food processor.
- Slowly drizzle in honey while beating until mixture pulls together. I did this part by hand, it was very easy. The dough should make a ball.
- Divide into four smaller balls and chill for an hour or so.
- Roll out on a floured surface and cut into round shapes. Add flour as needed.
- Bake at 300 for 10-15 minutes. I baked the cookies for 12 minutes until the bottoms were nice and golden brown. The cookies will harden after you take them out.
- Let cool.
- Spread a small amount of the icing (recipe above) on the top of the cookies evenly. Do them in batches of 10 as the icing can harden.
- Decorate using the flowers and herbs of the sun: Please note above on how to choose flowers.
- Refrigerate for storing.
enjoy!
Source
https://gathervictoria.com/tag/summer-solstice-magic/
Text and photos by twincitiesherbs.com.
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