04 May Salted Lavender Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies

Renee from the awesome food blog Will Frolic For Food has organized a virtual potluck and the theme is edible flowers! At first I was struggling with the theme because it’s kinda difficult to find edible flowers in the grocery stores in Sweden and we don’t have any in our garden yet. Then I remembered that I had some dried lavender buds in my pantry and it happens to be one of my favorite flowers AND flavors. Lavender and chocolate is like the best combo ever and so is chocolate and buckwheat so why not make a recipe with a mix of these three flavors?

When I was in my favorite bookshop in Paris a couple of weeks ago I was flipping through the pages of the Tartine Book nr.3 and found the recipe for their salted rye chocolate cookies. Sneakily I took a photo of it with my phone (Let’s be honest, I couldn’t buy the book and bring it home in my carry-on luggage so what choice did I have..?) to save it for later. Later happened to be two days after I’d come home to Stockholm again. When I made the cookies I substituted the rye flour with buckwheat and added a tablespoon of dried lavender buds. Other than that I didn’t change a thing and they turned out perfectly! Even though they don’t look as glamorous as those Pinterest photos of cakes with mountains of flowers on them they’re definitely worthy of their place in this edible flower potluck.

Here’s a list of all the other food bloggers that participated in this edible flower virtual potluck. Go check them out!

• The Bojon Gourmet | Hibiscus, Rhubarb + Yogurt Ice Pops
• Bread + Barrow | An Edible Flower Luncheon  
• Le Jus d’Orange | Rose Hokkaido Cupcakes with Pistachio-infused cream
• Dunk & Crumble | Strawberry Lilac Pavlovas
• Earthy Feast | Lentil Salad with Browned Butter Baby Turnips, Sourdough Bits, Soft Boiled Egg, Microgreens + Marigold
• EGeeDee | Coconut Golas (Indian Shaved Ice on a Stick) in a Hibiscus Syrup
• Fix Feast Flair | Mini Pistachio-Rose Olive Oil Cakes with Lemon-Chamomile Whipped Cream
• Ginger and Toasted Sesame | Hwajeon: Sweet Matcha Rice Cakes with Fresh Flowers and Honey Syrup
• Kale & Caramel | Ricotta & Basil Stuffed Nasturtiums
• A Little Saffron | Raspberry Rose Fizz
• London Bakes | Strawberry + Rose Cake (Gluten Free) 
• Snixy Kitchen | Chamomile Honeycomb Ice Cream
• Top With Cinnamon | Lime, Mango and Elderflower Cakes
• Vegetarian Ventures | Breakfast Sweet Potato with Hibiscus Tea Yogurt & Turmeric Granola
• Vidya Living | Rustic Rhubarb, Strawberry & Chamomile Galette (Gluten Free) 
• A Brown Table | Flourless Chocolate Cake with Orange Blossom Water & Strawberry Champagne Sauce
• Will Frolic for Food | Lilac Lemon Grapefruit Sherbet (Vegan)
• Hortus Cuisine | Strawberry Cake with Rose Almond Custard

Notes:

• I made the cookie dough in the evening and made a few test cookies after leaving the dough for 30 min in the fridge(you can see a picture of them here). They turned out delicious, soft and almost cake like. Since I was going to photograph these for the blog I put the bowl with cookie dough in the fridge over night and in the morning I let the dough sit in room temp for 1 hour before I scooped balls of cookie dough and then rolled them between the palms of my hands into golf ball sized rounds. I spread them out onto a baking sheet and gently pressed them down a bit. They didn’t spread as much as the ones the night before did and they had a more chewy consistency which I liked. I really liked both versions in their own ways. So if you want more of a cake/brownie-like cookie bake them after 30 min in the fridge according to the recipe below and if you want a chewier, more dense cookie, like pictured here, bake them the morning after.
• Depending on how much lavender flavor you like you can let the lavender steep in the melted chocolate for longer before folding into the dough or add two tbsp of dried lavender buds instead of one.
• To sum it up: The longer you chill the dough, the harder it is to scoop. If it chills for more than an hour, remove the dough from the fridge to warm up to room temperature before scooping, about an hour. The cookies will keep up to 3 days in an airtight container.