Get Your Goat: Lavender Honey Solstice Shortbread

What happens when you put fresh apricots on a blind date with lavender honey? You have a really good time...and just in time for the Summer Solstice. Instead of actually adding lavender to this awesome Romancing the Bee Lavender Honey Shortbread recipe, I used lavender honey from Honey Bee Happy in Half Moon Bay. For those who struggle with cow dairy, I also took  the recipe down a "goated" path by replacing traditional butter with goat butter.

See the little black speck on the left? I thought that interesting imperfection in the apricot was grounds to instead call this Transit of Venus Shortbread, but I figure we have enough smart asses in the food blogosphere. I'm not afraid however, to see what tagging it that way does. 




Additional modifications to the recipe:

• Skipped adding lavender into the batter and nixed the glaze. 
• Grilled sliced fresh apricots in goat butter and brushed with lavender honey
• Made the potentially bad choice of adding them in sun-like formation to the center of the shortbread before it went into the oven. Coming out of the oven,  though, the shortbread held together. Whew!

After a few hours of cooling this shortbread never got brittle, but it was absolutely delicious with the honey grilled apricots on top.

For digital epicures, both shortbread images are edited with Photo Toaster. Top image:  Paper (texture) and Vibrant (color) settings. Slice image uses the Soft light filter.

Happy Solstice!