Lavender Cupcakes

My husband, the musician, sometimes gets hired to play in musicals at the local university. On occasion, I have made baked goods and sent them with him for the musicians to eat in the pit between numbers.

I was recently contacted by a friend of my husband's who has had the opportunity to sample my baked goods in the pit. He's the musical director of "She Loves Me," a show that takes place in a Parfumerie in Budapest in the 1930's. He asked if I would make cupcakes for the first read-through ... his only request was that I incorporate lavender and/or rose water.

Lavender and/or rose water???????

I've never done anything with either of these two ingredients before ... so of course I said yes!

And the research began...

I found a pretty interesting recipe for lavender cupcakes with honey frosting, so I decided to give it a try.

Since I don't have a food processor, I had to chop the lavender by hand.

I then mixed the flour, baking powder, salt, milk, heavy cream, chopped lavender leaves, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

I tinted one cup of the batter purple ...

... so that I could marble the cupcakes.

I was only able to get 20 cupcakes from this recipe.

Finally, I made a honey buttercream, put on a ruffled ice cream swirl, and added some purple glitter for a little bling.

The inside looked pretty cool too.

The lavender taste and smell is pretty strong ... but not in a bad way. I felt like I was in a Parfumerie in Budapest. :)

Stay tuned for the the rose water cupcakes ...