Lavender and Honey Cupcakes

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I baked cupcakes for Matt’s birthday, and thought it would be nice to share them with you guys! I have the most amazing cupcake recipe book – 500 Cupcakes by Fergal Connolly, that was gifted to me from Taylor on my birthday a few years back. If I am ever at a loss for what fun cupcakes I could bake, this is my go-to. It has everything – plain ol’ cupcakes, fancy cupcakes, holiday cupcakes, savoury muffins…I could go on. This time I opted to make lavender and honey cupcakes. Sounds delicious, right?!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

For cupcakes:
1 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, softened – i used salted…woops! I blame No Frills, the name is no joke.
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups self-rising flour
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract.

For frosting:
1 cup cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
1/3 cup honey
blue food coloring
2 tbsp dried lavender flowers – you can get these at an herb and spice shop, or sometimes heath food/herbalist stores will have them.

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C), and place your cupcake papers (I used fun polka dot ones) in your cupcake tray (why thank you Alex, a totally new concept to cupcake baking) . This recipe makes about 1 1/2 dozen cupcakes.

For the cupcakes, with an electric mixer (if you have one), beat together in a large bowl the butter, sugar, flour, eggs and vanilla extract. Beat until smooth and pale. To be honest, I didn’t love the actual cake part of my cupcakes. It wasn’t very sweet, and I’m not totally sold on self-rising flour. Next time I would probably opt for a little more vanilla extract, sugar and maybe just regular old flour, salt and baking powder. Once your batter is ready, pour into your tray and bake for 20 mins. After they are done, leave them on a cooling rack or whatever you have that acts as a cooling rack.

For the frosting, beat confectioner’s sugar and cream cheese in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and creamy. Beat in honey and a few drops of blue food coloring and stir in half of your yummy smelling dried lavender flowers.

Once your frosting is all delicious looking, spread the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes and sprinkle them with the remainder of the lavender flowers, if you want, no pressure.

These cupcakes can be stored without frosting in an air tight container for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.