Shortbread and gingerbreads

Never in my life would I have dreamt that one day I'd be able to make shortbread. I didn't even know it was this easy. Hehe. I came across a blog recently, by Chawanmushi of Cookbake Legacy, and was introduced to dried lavender flowers for cooking/baking and it got me interested. Luckily enough, I came across them and bought a packet to see what I could do with the lovely scented flowers. I love lavender, not just for the aroma but also the colour. Purple is one of the colours I like. Just sniffing them gives one a feeling of calmness. That's why I have lavender bath to calm the active one down before bedtime. Hehe.

Well, I searched the internet for some recipes, following the link in Chawanmushi's blog, and ended up deciding to go with lavender shortbread. Firstly it sounded interesting, and secondly I'll get to try to bake a shortbread, as Daphne did recently. I love shortbread, I know I know, fattening and all, but I hardly eat it anyway.

I had a problem with the recipe. I followed it accurately but the flour wasn't enough. It was too squishy to knead with 2 cups of flour, so I just added more and more. I did not measure but I believe I ended up putting 3-1/2 cups in total, as opposed to 2. With fingers crossed, I baked them and they turned out really nice. We couldn't wait for the first batch to cool before we were stuffing our faces with them, both the princess and I. :P They didn't taste too floury even though I did add quite a bit of flour to the original recipe. This is what the dough looked like after addition - a soft, pliable dough.

Note to The Singapore Houswife - You can try this as it does not contain eggs. You can choose to leave out the lavender as well.

Just wanted to show this ready gingerbread house before I get on to my next topic of gingerbread. K & I were over at Ikea to select our trees last Friday and she wanted to get hold of these houses but they had no stock of them, so after spending time at the cafe and wandering around the store, we were about to leave when we spotted some new stocks being brought in. They had the houses, but as she had to rush off to work and me home to meet princess, we couldn't wait for them to unload, thus I got mum to pick them up instead. These are so convenient, just have to ice them and decorate. Great activity for kids, although I wouldn't want a gingerbread house in my home. Imagine what that will attract! So hope K and the kids will have fun, am sure they will.

To occupy princess this afternoon while I made my shortbread, I gave her some decorating 'tools' to play with. :) The icing I prepared on Saturday and divided them into 4 colours, which I then left to harden in the fridge. So I let her have free rein on them together with some sprinkles and she came up with all these creations. How cute.

Tools of the trade.

My little artist princess busy concentrating on her work.

This is for dinner. I made a stew with chicken, onions and potatoes, but along the way I added a small piece of capsicum which was lying half dead, and decided to plonk in some mushrooms and the asparagus which were also days old. Hehe. So here is my chapalang stew.