I got to chatting with owner of our neighborhood market and I mentioned that I baked gourmet cupcakes on the side. Being as generous and friendly as always, he suggested that I bring a batch by to possibly sell them in the cafe. I gladly agreed!
I happened to have some left over lavender in the kitchen, and since it has always been one of signature flavors in my baking, I thought it was only appropriate to utilize it for my first sampling.
I went ahead and took my favorite go-to vegan cake recipe, making it with lavender and fresh ginger, and made a few batches of cupcakes.
For the frosting, I decided to add blueberries and ginger to my lavender-infused powdered sugar (pic above) that I had left sitting overnight.
I added several scoops of softened earth balance, agave, cinnamon, a few shakes of sea salt and a sprinkle of cayenne for some more kick. I would give you exact measurements but I always just improvise until I like the texture and flavor. I threw this all in the food processor so the blueberries and ginger would be well integrated and not chunky.
My only regret here was that I did not sift out the lavender out of the powdered sugar for the frosting. The floral bitterness was almost too intense and I had to add some more agave and powdered sugar to try and mellow it out, which worked well enough. (I find adding whole lavender buds to batter that will be cooked in the oven works out great, but eating them raw in a frosting is a bit too much, even for me.) All in all, I still think this was one of the yummiest flavor combos I have made so far- especially when added to the mouth-watering cupcakes!!!!
Favorite Part always is the decorating. I chopped up fresh figs and got out the candied ginger. I also pulled out the piping tools my mom got me for Christmas and experimented with what designs I could make...
The market owner loved them and put them in the refrigerator to test how long they would last. A week later when I stopped by, we pulled them out and they were still incredibly moist and delicious (minus the fresh fig which we had to take off). He asked me to start bringing by mini-cupcakes in three different flavors to start putting in the display case next week- wish me luck!
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