Lavender Cake with Earl Grey Buttercream Frosting

So it's been a while. And I'm inconsistent. And I'm not even posting a cookie recipe. So shoot me. :P

I'm not a cake-baker, normally, except when the mood strikes. And the other day? It definitely did. Luckily I'm good at modifications so I could transform the Joy of Baking's White Butter Cake with Wilton's vanilla buttercream frosting into what I was really craving: a lavender-flavored cake with rich Earl Grey frosting.

This recipe's also modified for those of us without fancypants standmixers. I like living in the 80s, apparently, and only use an electronic hand-mixer. If you don't have that, kudos to you -- you must have some mighty fine guns. ;)



CAKE
(YEILD: 2 cakes. I made three. Do what you want, adjust accordingly. I decided not to give you crackpot measurements from when I did the three, though.)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp dried lavender
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup white baker's sugar, divided
2 large eggs, separated
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
20 drops blue food coloring
9 drops red food coloring
1 cup milk
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Directions:

1. While eggs are still cold separate the eggs, placing the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another bowl. Cover the two bowls with plastic wrap and allow the eggs to come to room temperature before using (about 30 minutes). Also make sure you've got the butter out for the same reason.
   
2. In the meantime, heat the milk on the lowest setting on your stove top. Add lavender when warm. You do not want it to boil, and you do not want a skim to form, but you're basically steeping the flowers in the milk; the longer you steep, the stronger youe cake flavor will be. I think I kept mine on the heat for 15 or so minutes, stirring frequently. Strain the lavender milk and leave uncovered so it also comes to room temperature.
   
3. In a mixing bowl sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
   
4. In large bowl, cream the butter until light in color and super-soft. Add 3/4 cup of the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and food coloring, and beat until combined.
5. Start folding in the flour and 1/2 cup of lavender milk with a rubber spatula, alternating in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Set aside. (The other ~1/2 cup of milk is… uh… for you to enjoy. Because you reduced it I didn't want you to not have enough by giving you actual measurements. You will likely lose some milkstuff to the steeping is all.)
   
6. In a small bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. With a rubber spatula gently fold a little of the whites into the batter to lighten it, and then fold in the remaining whites until combined. Do not over mix the batter or it will deflate.
   
7. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans and smooth the tops with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
   
8. Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Place a wire rack on top of the cake pan and invert, lifting off the pan. Once the cakes have completely cooled, wrap in plastic to keep fresh.

FROSTING
(YIELD: 3 cups)

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 tsp prepared Earl Grey tea, room temperature
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
2 tsp ground Earl Grey tea leaves
1/2 cup Earl Grey milk

Directions:

1. Fix your tea -- brew a regular old cup of Earl Grey and set aside 2 tsps to cool to room temperature. Also fix your milk. Same as it was with the lavender milk, you're going to steep the tea bag in warm-but-not-boiling milk, making sure to not let a skin form on top. Filter your milk.
   
2. Combine ground tea leaves with confectioners' sugar in medium bowl. Set aside.
   
3. In large bowl, cream butter with electric mixer. Add 2 tsp Earl Grey tea.
   
4. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry.
   
5. Add Earl Grey milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Theeeeen you carve your cakes up a bit, make sure they're nice and even and pretty, and frost.



Nom your heart out.

Failure: Southern Chocolate Chewies

Updating bi-monthly didn't happen for the month of May. It'll be made up this month. Lots of stuff happened -- the end of school, friends graduating, the computer being put in the computer hospital, a ruined internet connection, a business trip… it was busy, and not a lot of time was spent around a computer. I think the worst part was the fact that I didn't bake at all in May (or, at least, not cookies!). I spent the end of April pulling together a handful of recipes, though, so have plenty to post, and now that it's summer, finally the time to do so.

When I was first thinking about starting up this blog my friends agreed that, besides posting delicious things I've made and blabbing about my love for baking cookies, they'd also like to see failures, and hear about the woes of the kitchen. Let me be the first to throw out the idea that everything I make is good -- heck, sometimes it's downright awful. The only way to get something good is to experiment and poke around with recipes; take risks, get in there with an idea and go for it, and suffer the horrible repercussions or revel in delicious rewards. The more you mess around with things, the more comfortable you get with doing it.

Some of my favorite foods are the ones that would, quite honestly, push my comfort zone to make. I am an avid Southern food lover, something about its seasonings and love for richness is something the resonates with me. I'm not from the South, though -- I was raised with Californian-fresh fare, and any gaps were filled with my mom's Chicagoan-Italian cooking. This sometimes makes the kitchen a dangerous place for me.

Enter Southern Chocolate Chewies. My love. My nemesis.

Delicate, fudgy, dense cookies with a crispy, hard shell and sticky insides, usually studded with walnuts. It is a dream. It's a cookie that is SO chocolatey and rich that it makes one sick to eat more than a couple, and yet the batch only lasts a couple days before hardening up.

I cannot make these cookies. I tried, and failed.



Total cookie failure! Chewies are supposed to be a little hard on the outside and thick, chewy, almost sticky, on the inside. These were not that. They were cracked shells on the outside and gooshy on the inside. GOOSHY. (Think mousse-texture, but eggier.) What's more, the cherries added for texture made them bitter and gross. (When chocolate/cherry goes bad! What a horrible day!) Oh well, not every cookie can be a success the first time around.

They'll be hitting the kitchen again, I have to make them. One day I'll conquer them. This time? Not so much.

But next time? These cookies are mine!

Hot Mouth-Sex Cookies

…or Triple Chocolate Raspberry Cookies.

These are probably the most decadent, over-the-top cookies I've ever made. They're indulgence. They're almost sinful.

They're for rare occasions -- they're too much to eat more than maybe two, and are meant to be shared. They usually get made as gifts or when I want a general crowd pleaser, assuming the crowd love chocolate (and if a crowd doesn't love chocolate, I'm not sure I want to be in that crowd).

The original recipe (and name) for these cookies was given to me by an online friend who I often shared and swapped recipes with. I made it once when I got it, two years ago, and it was pretty damn good. Last year, though, I discovered that the ingredients used no longer existed, so I had to improvise/modify the recipe. I believe these modifications led to an even tastier cookie, but none of it would be possible without Jen.

Originally there were no real raspberries in these cookies -- the old raspberry-chocolate swirl chips were all that lent these cookies their bittersweet berry tang. I added raspberry extract to even out that flavor and keep it sweet.

And honestly, take a clue from the name -- serve these warm, if you can.



Hot Mouth-Sex Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter -- softened
3/4 cup baker's/superfine white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp raspberry extract
2 eggs -- room temperature

1/4 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
1 oz. crushed Just Raspberries

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

1/2 bag high-quality ilk chocolate chips (I prefer Guittard over any other brand, for size, fat content, and flavor)
1/2 bag Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. Cream the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth.
   
3. Add the vanilla and raspberry extracts and eggs. Cream smooth.
   
4. Slowly add the cocoa powder and Just Raspberries to the mixture. Be careful, if you mix this on too high of a speed or put too much in, you'll be inhaling chocolate and raspberry dust. Mix evenly into the creamed mixture so that it is again smooth.
   
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture one cup at a time, mixing by hand.
   
6. One half-bag at a time, mix in the chocolate chips. Mix evenly.
   
7. Place in tablespoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for approximately 9 minutes.

Enjoy!

Lavender Shortbread

Ever since visiting France in the summer of 2004 and sampling a large range of floral-flavored and infused treats, a couple friends and I have challenged ourselves to incorporate the less popular flavours here in our cooking at home. From violet ice cream to ginger-lavender cake, we are always looking for new ways to enjoy the powerful, clean taste of flowers.

These slices of shortbread are light and crumbly, buttery and fragrant. If you're a fan of lavender scented things, you might like these. Criticized for tasting like soap or smelling of old ladies, lavender as a cooking spice has a lot to overcome. But there's a good reason these cliché ideas are what come to mind when you hear lavender -- it's strong and fresh, a clean herby scent.

The texture is kept light while the lavender permeates it. The butter balances the sharpness of the flower and the biscuit is only lightly sweet so as not to overwhelm the palate. It's a refreshing cookie perfect for Spring.



Lavender Shortbread

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup superfine/bakers' sugar
2 Tablespoons dried lavender, finely ground
1 cup butter, room temperature

1/4 cup coarse sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
   
2. Combine flour, sugar, and lavender in medium bowl.
   
3. Using a fork, mix in the butter. The mixture should be evenly grainy looking and loose, not clumpy.
   
4. When mixed, transfer the mixture into a non-stick baking pan. I use an 8"x8" pan because I like my shortbread a little thicker. Spread evely.
   
5. Press the mixture down firmly.
   
6. With the tines of a fork, poke holes throughout the shortbread to vent it and prevent it from cracking.
   
7. Bake for 20 minutes, or til the edges brown just a touch.
   
8. Remove from the oven and immediately cut the shortbread. I did three columns and about 7 rows. Leave it in the pan to cool, on a cooling rack.
   
9. When cooled, pop the shortbread out of the pan by turning it over.
   
10. Since it's not an extremely sweet biscuit, dot the top surface of the biscuits with water and lightly sprinkle coarse sugar.

Enjoy!

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies

While studying abroad in Brighton, England, a good friend and I became addicted to a British dessert served at our favourite vegetarian restaurant, Wai Kika Moo Kau. The dessert? Sticky toffee pudding.

It was a small bread-based pudding, like the texture of a warmed brownie, served with toffee sauce. It was delicious. We asked for a recipe but there was none to be given, they were an ordered food, not house-made, so we wrote down characteristics and ingredients we thought we could taste, and the owner of the restaurant wrote down the ingredients on the box; we were mostly right, we only missed the preservatives. Still, that wasn't enough. When I got home I knew I had to re-create this food for my friend, or at least the flavour.

Buttery, brown sugary, and date-studded, these are best served warm.



Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies

Ingredients:
1 c unsalted butter, softened
1 c dark brown sugar + 1/4 c reserved to coat outside of cookies
1/4 c dark corn syrup/golden syrup
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract

2 c flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

2 oz finely chopped dates

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder.
   
3. In a large bowl, beat butter and 1 c dark brown sugar together. Add dark corn syrup, eggs, and vanilla extract. Beat until well incorporated.
   
4. Gradually add dry ingredients. Blend until even and smooth.
   
5. Place in freezer with scooping spoon for approximately 15 minutes – this dough needs to firm up to be rolled into balls.
   
6. Set aside a small dish with about 1/4 c dark brown sugar – the reserved sugar – for coating. Scoop dough balls out with a teaspoon and drop onto non-stick cookie sheet.
   
7. Lightly press dough balls down. Top with light dusting of brown sugar.
   
8. Bake for 8 minutes (at 0 sea level).

Enjoy!