Edible Flower Decorated Spiced Shortbread Cookies

There are lots of edible flowers you could use; for these today I am using Calendula and Chicory as both are abundant in my herb garden right now.

First though, we want to make the dough and get it in the fridge to cool, then we can harvest the flowers...

To make the dough:
Mix 2 c. whole wheat flour and 2 c. Millet flour (or some other combination of your choosing)
with 1 tspn. baking powder.

Then cut in 2 sticks of butter and use your hands to mix it until crumbly.  If you haven't done this before, it may seem like it'll never work, it will, cut the butter into small pieces and just keep at it until thoroughly mixed and looking like wet bread crumbs.

Grind 1 c. raw sugar with 10 Cardamom pods until fine.  Make sure to smell this - utterly divine!  Mix with 1 tspn. ground Nutmeg.  After grinding and mixing stir this into your flour butter mixture.

This is half the dough.

Then mix in 6 Tbspn. yogurt, then 4 Tbspn. hemp milk (or other milk of your choosing).  Just mix until mixed, no longer, no kneading.  Spatula this onto wax paper and roll into the desired diameter of your cookies (they will bake about 50% larger).  You may want to divide in half and then roll if you want smaller cookies.

Nature's Confetti - no need for artificial sprinkles. 

Put in fridge for half hour or longer.



Now we can harvest the flowers.  You will just use the petals, so pull them out and mix them.

It's a party in your kitchen; later it'll be a party in your mouth!

Preheat the oven 350 degrees, pull out your chilled dough and cut into slices about 3/8" thick and place on ungreased sheet.  Sprinkle with petals and press them into place.

Bake about 20 minutes, give or take depending on size of your cookies.  Makes about 32 large cookies.  What can I say, I like large cookies and I cannot lie.  :)  (The recipe could make 100 small ones).

"Come forth into the light of things; let nature be your teacher" 

                                                  - Wordsworth

The beloved Chicory - a medicinal wild plant.  The root makes a great coffee substitute.

The beloved Calendula - an important herb to cultivate - so many uses.