It’s actually pretty rare that I make cupcakes. Don’t get me wrong: I love choosing the batter, pulling all my liners and sugars out to decide how to decorate them, whipping butter into a frosting frenzy with powdered sugar… but it just takes forever. As much as I love cupcakes, most of the time on a Sunday afternoon, all I want is a recipe I can spend an hour or two on and then eat right away. None of this tip-toeing around the kitchen for an hour so they don’t fall, testing with toothpicks, waiting to cool before I can frost them.
But there are those rare times–seems like once every six months–that I just want to spend all day making a really pretty cupcake. Until someone starts hiring me to cater their birthday parties, my cupcakes have no celebratory reason attached to them besides the joy of having a dozen gorgeous cupcakes sitting on my counter… which is just fine.
The trouble is, this particular cupcake craving hit when Milwaukee was at its most humid, not exactly the time most normal people would want to turn on the oven. Luckily, I saw this recipe on what has got to be one of the best cupcake blogs around, and it seemed to be the perfect summer cupcake: light, simple batter, lavender scented, tart but sweet lemon cream cheese frosting. I, and my neighbors, can testify: it is, indeed, the perfect summer cupcake.
Lavender Cream Filled Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit
Yields 12 cupcakes and plenty of extra filling/frosting (enough for a doubled batter recipe)
Note: Both filling and frosting should be refrigerated and cakes kept at room temperature in sealed container. Assembled cupcakes can be refrigerated, but are best when freshly filled and frosted!
For the cupcakes
4 Tbs butter, softened
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large egg whites
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake pan with liners. Soften butter in mixer on high speed. Pour in sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
Meanwhile, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. Combine milk and vanilla. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk mixture in three parts, beating well after each additio set aside.
Separately beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter gently until incorporated.
Scoop batter into cake pans, filling about 1/2 to 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until tester comes out clean.
For the filling–lavender whipped cream
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 Tbs dried lavender (found at Penzey’s or similar spice shops)
Combine sugar and water in small saucepan over medium-high heat. Heat mixture until sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Stir in lavender and let mixture sit over the heat for 3 minutes–don’t stir it. Remove from heat, strain into a small bowl, and set in refrigerator for a couple of minutes. Remove to continue cooling. Once lavender simple syrup is cool, to make the whipped cream, beat heavy cream and simple syrup in a mixer on medium-high until firm peaks form. Refrigerate until ready for use.
For the frosting–lemon cream cheese frosting
4 Tbs butter, softened
1 (8oz) package of cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp lemon juice
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
red and blue food coloring, for purple color
Combine butter and cream cheese in mixer until fluffy. Add half the powdered sugar along with the lemon zest and juice and beat on high speed. Add remaining sugar sparingly until desired sweetness is reached. Add food coloring until frosting is a lavender color. Refrigerate until ready for use.
Assembly
For cooled cupcakes, use a small knife to cut a scoop out of the middle of the cupcakes. Fill with a dollop of the lavender cream. Trim off the scooped bit of cupcake, then put the “hat” back on over the cream-filled center. Glaze the frosting over the cupcake. Sprinkle with dried lavender flowers as garnish, if desired.
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