Recipe Detail Page

1 For cookies, combine flour, cornstarch, icing sugar, lavender, pepper and salt in a food processor. Pulse about 12 times or until well combined and lavender is fragrant.

2 Add butter to food processor. Pulse about 20 times or until dough just starts to clump together.

3 Scrape dough out onto a work surface and gather into a ball. Form dough into a 1-inch thick (2.5-cm) disc, wrap tightly in plastic wrapand chill for 30 minutes.

4 Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C).

5 On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to ¼-inch (5-mm) thickness. Using 2- to 2½‑inch (5- to 6-cm) decorative cookie cutters, cut out cookies and place, a little apart, on ungreased baking sheets.

6 Bake until edges of cookies are tinged pale brown, 18 to 20 minutes. Carefully remove cookies from baking sheets and let cool completelyon wire racks.

7 For icing, sift icing sugar into a medium bowl. Gradually stir in 2 tbsp (30 mL) milk until a smooth icing forms. Carefully add red and blue food colouring, a drop at a time, adding about twice as much red as blue, until icing is tinted pale lilac. If icing is too stiff, add a little more milk.

8 Pipe or spread each cookie with a little of the icing. Sprinkle each with a pinch of lavender, pepper and/or decorative sugar. Let icing set before serving.