Violet Cookies
Magical Violets: If you gather the first violet in the spring your dearest wish will be granted. These lovely cookies will make you happy and pleasantly surprised. Quick and easy to make. Sweet violets nicely complement each cookie and remind us of medieval tapestries of these aromatic flowers prized for their beauty and fragrance, as well as their culinary and medicinal value.
Sweet violets are often associated with the love-goddess Aphrodite, they were symbol of fertility to the ancient Greeks who used them in making love potions. The plant’s leaves, flowers and rhizome have medicinal, culinary, cosmetic and dye uses. They are high in vitamin A and C. A poultice of fresh sweet violet leaves has been used to treat skin conditions for 2,000 years.
I like to dedicate this recipe to my name day which is celebrated on May 15th: The Feast of St. Sofia. Chances are you may never have heard much of St. Sofia, a martyr of Rome, whose daughters were Faith, Hope and Charity. Based on her feast day on 15 May, Sophia became one of the "Ice Saints", the saints whose feast days are traditionally associated with the last possibility of frost in Central Europe. In the past, when we didn't have televisions and weather forecasts, people also had to plan their work in the fields. Farmers, shepherds and gardeners used methods developed over the centuries that helped them predict the weather not only for a few days but even for the whole year. Folk tradition says that mid-May should be cold, rainy and even frosty. Here we mean the so-called "cold gardeners" and "cold Zośka( meaning cold Sophie)". According to folk beliefs, when the cold Zośka is cold and rainy, we should not be afraid of any frosts until autumn.
VIOLET COOKIES RECIPE:
By Zosia Culinary Adventures | Date: May 15, 2024
Preparation Time: 1 hour
Baking Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 30 cookies
Ingredients:
230 g unsalted butter, room temperature
100 g granulated sugar
230 g all purpose flour
1 tsp pure vanilla essence
30 fresh violet blooms or any fresh edible flowers(no stems), refrigerated until ready to use
Instructions:
Combine with the mixer butter and sugar.
Add vanilla essence and flour. Using hands, knead it together quickly until smooth dough is formed.
Shape the dough into a log (4 cm in diameter) and wrap it well with saran wrap.
Place it in the fridge for an hour. The cookie dough can be made well in advance. It keeps for about a week in the fridge and a month in the freezer.
Flour the table, turn out the log and slice it into 30 pieces (approximately 6 mm thick).
Please cookies on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper.
Decorate each cookie with a violet. Press gently each flower into a cookie.
Bake the cookies at 325F for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
ENJOY IT!
