Lemon Lavender Shortbread Cookies

This post was sponsored by Simple Mills.

Baking has always been a favorite childhood pastime of mine. I remember as a kid, my mom self-admittedly was not a professional when it came to baking. But I always insisted on making brownies and cookies on the weekends, so she’d leave me in the kitchen with a box of baking mix and let me experiment on my own. Matter of fact, I learned how to bake this way, lovingly breaking the rules and not following the instructions on the box. Sometimes I’d add extra ingredients, substitute others, and try & try again until I got a tasty final product. I took a similar approach to come up with these crispy on the outside, soft on the inside vegan & gluten-free lemon lavender shortbread cookies that are perfect for summer.

Although I’ve made my fair share of cookies in my life, I’d never tried baking with lemon or lavender. It’s a subtle flavor combination that’s light & fragrant. I have to say these cookies are my new favorite, because although I love a good classic chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin cookie they give a surprisingly unique kick. The lemon zest meets the lavender buds for a summery, refreshing cookie.

Now, you’re probably wondering how in the world I made shortbread cookies that are vegan, gluten-free, and free of refined sugar. Well, it actually ended up being a lot easier than I initially thought! To achieve the traditional sandy texture of a shortbread cookie, I added in creamy cashew butter and coconut oil. This is key to getting your cookies to be crispy outside yet soft inside.

I used pure maple syrup to sweeten the lemon lavender cookies.

Also, there’s coconut sugar in the Simple Mills vanilla cake mix. I genuinely love their gluten-free baking mixes, because they include only natural, wholesome ingredients . The instructions on the cake mix box said to use eggs, but fear not there’s a simple vegan substitute for that!

Flax eggs make for an amazing vegan egg substitute.

Flax eggs help add to the crispiness of the shortbread, making them even more delicious in the process. All of the Simple Mills baking mixes contain only coconut sugar (no evaporated cane juice here!) and easily can be made vegan, which is hard to come by in most baking mixes.

How to zest lemon

I was super duper excited to finally learn how to zest a lemon to add to the cookies. I did a quick Google search to find out how and opted for the grater method. Be sure to only grate the skin of the lemon, not the white layer underneath or else you’ll get a bitter flavor. I was nervous about this part, but after zesting my first lemon ever I’ll admit I felt very accomplished. Once I mixed the cookie dough up in my food processor, I popped them in the oven and anxiously waited. Before I knew it, the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies wafted through my apartment.

This post was sponsored by Simple Mills. All words and opinions are my own.

The final result was the most addicting lemon lavender shortbread cookies ever! Everything from the taste to the texture to the sweetness was spot on. The lemon zest paired perfectly with the subtle lavender flavor to make these cookies irresistible. I couldn’t stop at eating just one, going back for seconds and even thirds. Even my boyfriend, who’s my non-vegan official recipe taste tester, said these are the best cookies I’ve ever made.

If you try making this recipe, please share with me on Instagram and let me know what you think! I highly recommend trying these almond butter cookies and my favourite lazy girl vegan chocolate chip cookies as well.