Lemon Cupcakes with Lavender Cream Cheese Frosting

One of my co-workers is leaving the farm (Gorman Heritage Farm) and for her going away luncheon I made some Lemon Cupcakes with Lavender Cream Cheese Frosting. This recipe uses some of our lavender, and I used the eggs from Findlay Market. I just love being able to cook more with local ingredients. I've actually started teaching cooking classes at the farm now that uses as many local ingredients as possible. I'm hoping to keep this more up to date with what is prepared in the classes. But for now, here is the cupcake recipe.

Lavender Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons lavender petals
• 12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted

Directions

I first infused the butter with lavender using the following method (the ingredients above account for the butter infusion process).

Infused Butter Method from Cupcake Project

* Slightly more butter than your recipe calls for. When you make the tea-infused butter, some of the butter will get stuck on the tea leaves and you’ll end up with less usable butter than you started with. How much more butter should you use? You’ll have to experiment. It will vary depending on the type of tea that you use and how good you are at pressing the butter out of the wet tea leaves. I found that I needed 1 cup of butter to end up with 3/4 cup of butter.

* 2 grams (or approximately 1 1/2 teaspoons) of whole-leaf tea per tablespoon of butter. As Robert says, “The key to flavor is freshness so be sure that you are using only tea that is highly aromatic and butter that has no off aromas or flavors.”

Instructions:

1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter until just liquid.

2. Add the tea leaves.

3. Continue heating the mixture for about 5 minutes on low heat.

4. Remove from the heat and allow to stand for another 5 minutes or until the butter is discernibly tinted by the tea leaves.

5. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve, pressing hard on the tea leaves and then discarding them. This is the part where you will undoubtedly end up with some butter that you can’t get off of the leaves. I encourage you to press as hard as you can, but not to obsess about lost butter – it’s for a good cause.

6. Let the butter come to room temperature and then use it as you would regular butter in your baked goods.

via Baking with Tea – How To Get the Flavor of Tea Into Your Baked Goods ~ Cupcake Project.

Frosting:

1. Beat lavender-infused butter and cream cheese with a fork (if you have a mixer it probably would make it easier) until fluffy. Add sugar, 1 cup at a time; mix until smooth.

Lemon Cupcake:

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• Finely grated zest of 3 lemons (about 3 tablespoons), plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in zest and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk and lemon juice, and beating until just combined after each.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

4. Pipe frosting onto each cupcake, and sprinkle with lavender petals.

Adapted from From Martha Stewart Cupcakes, May 2009

via Lemon Meringue Cupcakes and more delicious recipes, smart cooking tips, and video demonstrations on marthastewart.com.

via PrissyCook » Blog Archive » Lemon Mergingue Cupcakes.

Share/Save

Falafel Wraps

I just recently moved to Cincinnati and into a house that has two ESL (English as a Second Language) Students. One is from China and one is from Saudi Arabia. So I'm really excited to learn how to cook food from their home towns.

My first attempt was falafel. I don't think it originated in Saudi Arabia, but Abdullah said that he has it in his country. So I tried it, and wow they turned out so well! They are so delicious. I'll have to do this recipe again! And to make it even better my friend Megan brought some hummus she made that has garlic and turnip greens. UM UM UMMM so good. I would have never thought to put turnip greens in hummus, but now I want to do it every time!

These guys are just so great looking that I had to take two pictures. So here's the recipe...


Falafel
Ingredients:

• 30 oz. can chickpeas, drained
• 2 medium onion, finely chopped
• 4 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoon coriander
• 2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons self rising flour
• 2 tablespoons Tahini
  
• oil for frying (we used a Fry Daddy deep fryer... I think this is what made it work so well)
  

Preparation:

Mash together chickpeas, garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, and salt first with a potato masher. Then I just dug in with my hands. It goes faster and you can smash each bean. When it's starting to come together and the beans are mashed up add the tahini and the flour. You want the result to be a thick chunky paste.

Form the mixture into small balls, about the size of a ping pong ball.

Fry in oil at 350 until golden brown (2-5 minutes).

Serve in a pita (Abdullah had gotten us Pita bread to show us what they eat for breakfast) with Tzatziki, turnip green hummus, spinach, cucumber, and tomato

Tzatziki

• 2 cups strained yogurt
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup finely chopped cucumber
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• pinch salt

Fold in the cucumber and garlic into the thick yogurt. Sprinkle salt and stir in the lemon juice.