Lavender Cupcakes with Honey Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Wow the title sounds overwhelming! This cupcake has a little kick of spiciness from the lavender and the sweet and tang from the frosting, which make them pair so well and gives a nice balance!

The amount of lavender I used was from the experience I had with making honey lavender ice cream (which was delish by the way). I steeped a tablespoon of lavender in some milk and then added to the cupcake mixture. I also added a litle bit of the steep buds into the cupcake mixture. Because even though the buds have been steeps, it will still gives off that strong spicy to bitter taste when chewed. I know people like my boyfriend are not very fond of lavender, so adjust so that the eater can taste that it's lavender.

The frosting was super fun to make since it has so many components. I made a cream cheese frosting with a larger cream cheese to butter ratio, and a little less powdered sugar than usual. The honey will makes the frosting naturally sweeter so don't need as much sugar! Then I added lemon juice and lemon zests. Whipped them all up and viola! A sticky and gooey, sweet and tangy frosting.

Lemony Sunday

Sundays are usually sweet and sour to me. It's sweet because that's a day off, but sour because it is always followed by a Monday, which means going to work for me.
Anyhow, I always enjoy eating things that are sweet and sour. Have you ever heard of those "super lemon" or "super strawberry" candy? I love those along with all other sour candies when I was growing up. I also love those sour prunes and plums, sweet and sour soup, etc. My mom used to tell me that I should stop eating so many sour things if I want to give birth to a baby boy one day. She said women who eat sour things tend to give birth to baby girls and not baby boys. (Not that my mom is being sexist, but I told her once that I want one boy and one girl.) I'm not sure where she gets that from either.

Okay, enough of my lemon talk. So on this lemony sunday, I decided to make lemon bars! This is my second time making lemon bars, and it came out set, golden yellow and perfect. It was just missing this particular flavor that I recalled from last time I made it. I don't know how to describe that flavor, it reminds me of steamed Chinese duck eggs minus the saltiness! Maybe I got it confused with the key lime pie I made couple months back. But with or without that flavor, it was still lemony and yummy!

 

 

 My boyfriend reserved half the batch for himself before I brought the rest to work. Not to mention I ate 3 1/2 bars within 4 hours after making it. Maybe it's not a good idea to make these, but it's so comforting to bite into the chewy sweet and tangy goodness, with the bar crust melting in the mouth. But yeah, definitely need to chill a couple months before making these again. I don't want to end up eating the whole batch.

Honey Lemon Cupcakes

I was inspired to make this cupcake when I saw a photo of cupcakes with some candy bees in Women's Day magazines. I was really excited to make the bees more than the cupcakes actually, haha.

I used yellow peanut M&M's for the bees. In the magazines, they use toosie roll for the stripes, but I am not a big toosie rolls fan, so I used chocolate.  I melted some chocolate and with a fork, I put eyes and stripes on the bees. For the wings, the magazine used clear spice drop candy, which I had no idea what it is, so I used sliced almond instead.

The frosting for my first batch was  super duper sour. So I tasted the frosting as I mix the second one. Working with lemon is tricky since they are so sour.

Buzzzzzz....