The lavender is dried and the instructions for one recipe is to grind in a mortar and pestle with brown sugar. I do not know about using fresh. For most recipes, there is a one to three ratio between dried and fresh.OH MY HEAVENS how decadent can we get here love the recipe's @ronott1 went on amazon looking for Culinary lavender do you grind it before use I have a lavender plant that has those buds ?