Baking with Herbs
- Chef Liz Thompson
- Jul 31
- 2 min read
Head to Your Garden and Grab What You Grow!
One of my most favorite things to do in the summer is head to my garden and grab rosemary, lavender, basil (not just for pesto!) and even rose petals, nothing sprayed with pesticides of course, and toss them by the handful into your food processor with either sugar, butter or even flour..
Most of the year, I always have a few mason jars filled with herbed sugars that I use in place of regular granulated sugar to make scones, shortbread, poundcake, chocolate truffles...and then drop the chocolate truffles in your coffee! Or I add it to iced tea, rim the glass of my cocktail or mocktail, make a simple syrup with to glaze a cake, once again use in my ice tea or to make an herbed vodka cocktail. Or even candies; lollipops which start with sugar as well as caramel sauce. A lavender caramel sauce is wonderful on plain vanilla ice cream.
You can also infuse your heavy cream as well by throwing a handful of herbs of your choice into heavy cream in a high-sided pot of course as it "boils up", turn it off and then let seep for 20 minutes then strain out. I then use the herbed heavy cream for ice creams, custrds such as creme brulee or add it to chocolate ante make truffles.
Flour? Use an herb-flavored flour to make a flavorful crust for your quiche or a savory bread as well instead of adding your herbs into your dough; just a different way to mix them in.
Here are some other suggested uses:
Rosemary with olive oil cakes, focaccia and lemon cookies.
Thyme with peaches in pies and tarts.
Lavender in shortbread, scones and lemon-lavender cake.
Basil with strawberries, scones or infused into olive oil for desserts.
Mint in brownies and shortbread.
Tarragon with citrus desserts and stone fruits like peaches
This is something to have fun with and be creative~ use my Scone Recipe on the Blog Page as well or feel free to email me questions at :
Happy Picking!
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