About These Lavender Earl Grey Cookies
These lavender Earl Grey cookies are a fun, new take on a classic cookie recipe. Despite being on the fancier side of things, these cookies still come together quickly. In fact, making the dough for these cookies only took me 10 minutes or so, with another 5 minutes to shape the dough into cookies themselves!
For more Earl Grey flavored desserts on Hummingbird High, check out these Earl Grey Chocolate Chip Cookies and this Earl Grey Tiramisu!
The recipe is from my friend Amy and her cookbook, Blooms and Baking: Add Aromatic, Floral Flavors to Cakes, Cookies and More. Check out her blog Constellation Inspiration for even more fun recipes!
Let’s Talk About Earl Grey
Now that I’ve convinced you to try this lavender Earl Grey cookie recipe, let’s talk about some of its key ingredients—Earl Grey tea!
Recommendations and Substitutions
- Earl Grey Tea: You can use Earl Grey tea from tea bags, but you’ll need to cut up the bags, pour out the tea leaves, and measure them. If you want to save time, buy loose leaf tea instead! Tea from tea bags also tends to be more finely ground than loose leaf tea. You’ll need around 4 teaspoons of loose leaf tea to make the 1 Tablespoon of finely ground Earl Grey needed for the recipe.
Use whatever Earl Grey tea you like best. I personally love this Sweet and Creamy Earl Grey from Aroma Tea Shop. It’s blended with the blue cornflower petals you see on these cookies! - Blue Cornflower Petals: If you want your cookies to look exactly like mine, buy a bag of edible cornflower petals and garnish each cookie after baking! Cornflower petals are available online or in specialty spice and tea ships.
Freezing The Cookie Dough
You can freeze the cookie dough just like you can freeze your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough recipe. After portioning the dough into balls, place the balls on a parchment lined sheet pan and freeze for 30 minutes, or until the dough is hard enough to handle without being sticky. Transfer to a zip-top freezer bag and freeze for up to 3 months.
Note that the dough will be frozen WITHOUT the sugar garnish. When ready to bake, you’ll need to sprinkle the cookies with the extra sugar! There’s no need to thaw the cookie dough balls before baking. Follow the instructions for baking in the recipe, but increase the Bake Time to 14 to 16 minutes.
My Best Recipe Tips For Making These Cookies
- I like to bake the cookies one pan at a time. I find that doing so makes the best cookies, ensuring that none of them have overly burnt bottoms or raw centers. However, to save time, you can bake two sheet pans at a time. Position a rack in the upper-third position of the oven, and a second one in the lower-third position of the oven. Bake a pan on each rack, swapping their positions half way through the Bake Time.
- The cookies will look puffed when you pull them out of the oven, but will fall and crack into the perfect cookies as they cool. Because of the Earl Grey tea, it can be a little hard to tell when these cookies are ready—even when done, the cookie centers will look slightly gray. That’s totally normal, I promise!
Get the Recipe: Lavender Earl Grey Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
For the Lavender Earl Grey Cookies
- 2 ¼ cups (9.5 ounces or 270 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon finely ground Earl Grey tea (from 3 tea bags or 4 teaspoons loose leaf tea)
- ½ teaspoon culinary-grade lavender, finely ground
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ¼ cup (8.80 ounces or 250 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (8 ounces or 227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
For Garnish
- 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
- blue cornflower petals
Instructions
For the Lavender Earl Grey Cookies
- Prep your oven and pans. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two half sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, Earl Grey tea, lavender, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg, vanilla, and dry ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar and butter. Beat on medium-high speed until light, fluffy, and doubled in volume, 2 to 3 minutes, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl as necessary. Reduce the mixer to low and add the egg. Add the vanilla and beat until just combined. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl. With the mixer on low, gradually add the dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl once more, and beat on low for an additional 30 seconds.
- Assemble the cookies. Use a 3-tablespoon cookie dough scoop to portion the cookie dough into balls. Place the cookies at least 3 inches apart on the prepared sheet pans. Sprinkle the tops of the dough balls with the remaining 2 Tablespoons of sugar for garnish before baking.
- Bake the cookies. Bake one pan at a time for 12 minutes, or until the edges have set but the centers are still gooey. The cookies will look puffed when you pull them out of the oven, but will fall and crack into the perfect cookies as they cool.
- Garnish and cool the cookies. If using blue cornflower petals, sprinkle a few petals on top of each cookie.Cool the cookies on the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, or until the edges and bottoms of the cookies have set and feel firm to the touch. Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
- Serve and store. Serve warm or at room temperature. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container or zip-top bag at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Notes
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Weeknight Baking:
Recipes to Fit your Schedule
Over the past several years of running Hummingbird High, I kept a crucial aspect of my life hidden from my readers: I had a full-time, extremely demanding job in the tech world. In my debut cookbook, Weeknight Baking, I finally reveal the secrets to baking delicious desserts on a tight schedule.
I used English breakfast tea because we didn’t have Earl Grey on hand, and I also forgot to grind it. But even still, these are the best lavender cookies I have ever had! Not too sweet, nice and chewy, just the right amount of lavender flavor, with the flavor of a classic sugar cookie. I will definitely be making these cookies every summer they were so good. I almost never leave reviews in recipes I find but I love them so much I had to come back and give my praise!!!
I was easily able to make this recipe Vegan by using plant-based butter and an egg substitute. They felt a tad oily when they were cool enough to handle, but the taste was nice. Definitely a chewy cookie for sure!
One of the best cookies I’ve tried! Taste like a London Fog in cookie form. Only thing is I used a kitchen scale for the sugar and I think it was too much, needed to add more butter just to cream it together. They still came out super delicious!!
Great recipe! Made it for the first time today and the cookies are outstanding. Rinse and repeat
Delicious and so delicate!
Even though I forgot to cream the butter and sugar, the cookies still turned out to be a 10/10 recipe, absolutely delicious! Will definitely be making these again.
A bit too oily and not enough lavender but I love this recipe! I’ve used it 3 times now but have adjusted it to my personal liking. I now use 240 grams of butter as 270 grams gives it too oily of a base. I also use 2.5 tbsp of lavender and grind it up in a hand mortar with some sugar for extra flavour. I have tried this recipe with 4 tbsp of chai powder instead of earl grey as well and love it!
Thanks for the tip, but the recipe calls for 227 g of butter, not 270 g (that’s for the flour). If you’re reducing from 227 g, how much do you reduce by?
I made these cookies for a spring tea party and they were the star of the dessert table! So easy and so addictive. I did make a light glaze for them and sprinkled dried lavender flowers over the tops. They were stunning! Thanks so much for a great recipe!
cookies spread gigantic, 3 tablespoons of dough seemed like a lot, 4-5 inches across
I couldn’t taste the lavender and barely tasted the earl grey. I would add significantly more!
High Altitude Baking Instructions:
Add 2 tablespoons of room temp butter
Add 2 tablespoons lavender syrup (like Monin) or honey
Reduce baking soda by half
Adjust oven to 360°F
Bake on middle rack
Baked in Colorado Springs at 6,035 FT above sea level.
my cookies didn’t spread, and turned out cakey instead of flat and chewy. not sure if it’s because I over mixed it with the flour? or if it’s because my butter wasn’t quite room temp? I’d appreciate pointers cause from the pictures and reviews they seem like they should be better than mine turned out. (I would also suggest adding more tea, they turned out lacking a bit of extra flavour)
Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that! I have a post that helps troubleshoot cookies that come out too puffy/cakey. Check it out: https://www.hummingbirdhigh.com/2025/02/how-to-fix-puffy-cookies-and-other-cookie-baking-fails.html
Followed the recipe to the T, except I chilled the dough for about 30 minutes after making it. The cookies came out fantastic and they taste amazing – a real crowd pleaser!
my family and I are obsessed !
I doubled the lavender and it’s absolutely perfect. thanks for sharing this recipe!
Cookies are amazing!! Did ANYONE get these oldies to be flat like the picture? Mine were puffy and then the next back I flattened with the bottom of a jar but still not like the ones in the picture. Strange for sure
I have a guide on how to troubleshoot and fix puffy cookies on my site! It’s worth checking out: https://www.hummingbirdhigh.com/2025/02/how-to-fix-puffy-cookies-and-other-cookie-baking-fails.html
The post will explain more, but usually it’s because of using measuring cups and accidentally using too much flour or too little sugar.
Yum!!! These turned out fabulous! I made these on a whim for a ‘Severance’ watch party, since one of the characters makes chamomile lavender cookies in the show. I didn’t have any lavender on hand and decided to replace the earl grey with chamomile instead. I used three bags of Traditional Medicinals Chamomile & Lavender tea (just chamomile, lavender, and lemon balm leaf in these bags). Turned out better than expected!
My sons most requested cookie. So for a teen boy that means they are fabulous. I made them almost exactly as directed. (I added a tad more lavender & topped with the flowers and a tad of French flour de sel )and they came out exactly like the picture. Nice spread. Nice and chewy ! Thanks!
I made these for vegan with celiac with the following substitutions:
King Arthur Measure-for-Measure gluten free flour
Miyoko’s vegan butter (salted)
Flax egg (1 tbsp ground flaxseed, 2.5 tbsp water, left to gel)
They came out good, but I had to bake them for 20 minutes.
My oven doesn’t run cool; I always have to bake cookies with those substitutions for far longer than normal, and
I made the dough balls a day ahead and baked them straight from chilling in the fridge overnight.
The earl grey didn’t really come through, even though I used tea bags with a pretty strong bergamot flavour, and took the mortar and pestle to it.
In the future I would add bergamot essential oil to the butter instead.
The lavender is bit strong, though still good. The lavender I have is pretty potent though, and I measured after grinding rather than before.
I tried to remedy the lack of earl grey flavour by making a sugar glaze with
2/3 cup white sugar
2 tbsp x5 strength tea
< 1/8 tsp bourbon vanilla
which came out delicious but unfortunately was too much added sweetness on my tester cookie so I omitted it.
They're yummy and they look pretty, but they're essentially just lavender sugar cookies, which is disappointing as they are a gift for someone who really likes earl grey.
*tbf I had a hard time finding a good decaf earl grey for this as the recipient can't have any caffeine, but what I went with has a strong bergamot flavour when brewed, so idk
These were so delicious! The texture is soft and the cookies are very fragrant.
I LOVE this recipe. The texture of the cookie is perfectly crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle. Delicious favours.
When I find a recipe I like – I try and use the base to create other flavours as well. Today Im going to omit the lavender and earl grey – replace it with orange zest and then use white chocolate drizzle for a orange creamsicle cookie. Fingers crossed the moisture from the orange zest doesnt mess with it too much!
How many calories per cookie?
Super yummy!
Before investing in blue cornflower petals, can you tell me what would make them adhere to the cookies after they’ve been baked?
I sprinkle them when the cookies are fresh out of the oven and still a little bit moist/warm; as they cool, they’ll stick to the cookies.
Very good. Love the fluffiness but also the crisp edges. The flavor is subtle but very tasty.
These cookies are amazing. I used 1.5 tsp of lavender, because my lavender buds taste a bit milder (homegrown) and added a little bit of lemon zest. The cookies were nice and gooey in the centre and spread nicely. The earl grey taste isn’t very strong but in my opinion just right (but if you would like to really taste the earl grey I would suggest to use a bit more).
I might be in love with those! I always adore lavender flavoured things this time of the year so it was a no brianer to look for a recipe to fulfill my craving for lavender goodness 🙂
I made mine significantly smaller (slightly bigger than bitesized) as this just works better for me. That made them less chewy (or I assume that was why) but still perfect and so flavourful! Absolutely will make them again!
How do you think these cookies would do with a 1:1 gf flour replacement?
I think they’d work! I know some folks who have made them with King Arthur Baking Company’s and Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 replacement and liked the results.
This cookie recipe has been one of my favorites to make throughout college. Simple ingredients, whips up quickly, and tastes delicious! My friends loved that the cookie had caffeine it it (haha). They have just the right amount of crispness, a powerful earl grey flavor, and the lavender just ties everything together!
super excited to try out this recipe!
i only have have lavender essence. could i use that instead of the actual culinary buds? if so do you know how much i’d have to use?
🫶🫶
Yes, lavender extract could work—it can be a little strong, so I’d be conservative and only use 1/4 teaspoon. Better that the flavor is subtle versus overly soapy.
Made these in a gluten free version with 1 egg and 1 ground flax binder. They turned out absolutely amazing and were a hit with the group of friends.
I’m making them again today with a lavender earl grey tea for the cookie and a lemon zest buttercream. Last round, I had lavendar from my garden and put that in the buttercream.
Lots of options with this recipe if you like to be playful and pivot.
love it easy and unique! Everyone loves them