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Lemon Verbena Shortbread
recipe
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Chicago
Lemon Verbena Shortbread
Martin Sorge
Martin Sorge
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$1.00
These buttery, bright little cookies come together in a snap. Anyone who knows me knows that I love lemon verbena. I grow it a pot every single year. In the fall, I dry the remaining leaves to use all winter long in bakes and as tea. Lemon verbena smells like lemon drop candy, and gives a lovely herbal lemon note to this recipe. You can easily find dried lemon verbena online or at specialty spice shops.
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You Need

About 18 cookies
1:10

  • For the cookies

    • 3 g (about 3/4 cup if the leaves are whole, loosely-packed) dried lemon verbena leaves
    • 60 g (about 1/3 cup) sugar
    • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
    • Zest of 1 medium lemon
    • 113 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
    • 160 grams (1 1/3 cups) all-purpose flour

  • For the icing

    • 100 g powdered sugar
    • 4 teaspoon lemon juice

    • How To

    1. Using a spice grinder, blitz the lemon verbena leaves until into a fine powder. You may see some little sticks or things in there, but don't fret.
    2. Add the sugar, salt, and lemon zest into a bowl and rub the mixture with your fingers until it becomes fragrant. Sift in the ground lemon verbena and discard anything left in the sieve.
    3. Add the room-temperature butter to the sugar mixture, and use a wooden spoon to stir until everything is well combined and the butter is nice and creamy (about three minutes). If you're using a stand mixer, mix with a paddle attachment on medium-low speed for about one full minute.
    4. Add all of the flour and stir to combine, but don't overmix the dough. If the dough seems very sticky, add a couple teaspoons of flour and mix.
    5. Gather the dough together into a ball, and put it onto a piece of parchment paper or silicone baking mat. Using a little bit of flour to keep your hands or rolling pin from sticking, gently pat or roll the dough into a rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Slide the parchment and dough onto a baking sheet, and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes (up to 2 hours).
    6. Preheat the oven to 350F with the rack on the top third of the oven.
    7. Using a knife or a pizza wheel, cut the dough into rectangles that measure about 1 inch wide by 2 inches long. (If you have scraps of dough, gently knead them together and re-roll. The cookies might not be as tender, but they'll be just as delicious.) Next, prick each shortbread with a fork and transfer them to a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving 1/2 inch between each cookie.
    8. Bake the shortbreads at 350F for 17-20 minutes, until just light golden brown on the edges. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes on the baking pan, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
    9. To make the icing, stir together powdered sugar and lemon juice. The icing should flow very thickly and holds its shape. To test, you can drizzle a line onto a plate. If it holds its shape, then you're good. If it flows into a puddle, then add teaspoon of powdered sugar, stir, and test again.
    10. I like to put the icing in a piping bag or zip-top bag and casually pipe stripes over the cookies. Let the frosting dry for at least 2 hours.