The inspiration for these cakes came from the wonderful lavender bush in my garden. I looked for recipes using lavender but as I am on a 'flowers and cupcakes' mission at the moment, Nigella's recipe in her book Forever Summer was perfect.
Nigella created these lavender cupcakes to raise money for the Lavender Trust, which is a charity for young women with breast cancer and was set up in memory of Ruth Picardie.
Whilst in the garden on a glorious hot and sunny day, I gained an unexpected 'new friend', a butterfly no less. As I started to cut a few lavender sprigs, he settled on the bush. He was a little camera shy and the photograph, unfortunately, doesn't show all of his markings.
For this recipe you will need to make some lavender sugar first. Simply put a few sprigs of lavender into some caster sugar for a few days and hey presto, lavender sugar.
For the cupcakes you will need:
125 g self-raising flour, 125g very soft unsalted butter, 125g sieved lavender sugar, 2 eggs, pinch salt and a few tablespoons of milk.
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C /Gas 6 and line a 12 bun muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Put all of the cake ingredients, except the milk, into a food processor and whizz, now blend in the milk.
3. Fill the cake cases and bake for 20 minutes or until cooked.
For the icing:
250g Instant Royal Icing, violet icing colour, twelve sprigs lavender
1. Cut the peaked tops off the cooled cupcakes.
2. Make up the icing with a little water to a thick double cream pouring consistency. Put some food colour paste onto a skewer and dye the icing to a pastel violet.
3. Spoon some of the icing over the top of the cupcakes. Top each of the cupcakes with a little sprig of lavender before the icing sets.
Cupcake
17 comments:
Margaret What lovely and cute lavender cupcakes! georgeous, I love lavender! gloria
Hello first time here.. I adore cupcakes and my family does too. This is a new one to me and love the light purple frosting. Must be smelling divine!.
these look so elegant and delicate, absolutely beautiful!!
Becca :-)
These are just beautiful. I have some lavender which grew in my garden last year that I dried. Now thanks to you, I've got a great recipe to use them.
Have a wonderful weekend.
*kisses* HH
I can almost smell the lavender wafting in the breeze, they look brilliant.
These look gorgeous! I just LOVE the taste of flowers, my friends always tease me for it. I really want to experiment more with flowery flavours :) any idea if elderflower cupcakes would work?! Perhaps not...
The sprigs of lavender look so pretty :)
Beautiful cupcakes - so clean and professional looking!
Beautiful photo - I could almost reach out and take one (or two if your back was turned).
Great pictures Maggie. I don't even like cakes but your picture makes me want to eat one!
Hazel - I know that you can make elderflower fritters.
For cupcakes I think you would have to flavour them with elderflower cordial.
Unless someone else knows...........
These look very elegant indeed and I know they taste good because I've made them.
Very stylish lavender cupcakes,...mmmmmmmm!!
A lovely butterfly as well!
I love making my own lavender sugar!!
Very stylish lavender cupcakes,...mmmmmmmm!!
A lovely butterfly as well!
I love making my own lavender sugar!!
Right I am off to make some lavender sugar!
Great recipe. I've been looking for some lavender recipes to share with my readers as I have an all things lavender blog. What a great idea and I haven't met anyone who doesn't like cupcakes.
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Patricia Perth Australia
www.lavenderuses.com
all things lavender
I love lavender and have some in my garden too. I've never made these cupcakes and also have the book, definitely need to make these one day.
Your cupcakes look beautiful!
Maria
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