Lavender Blackberry Cheesecake

How many ways are there to bake with lavender?  Lots.  Here is another recipe where I used my handpicked lavender!  I combined a few different recipes to make something with what I had in the fridge.  I also went for our smaller cheesecake pan (the 7 inch) which is a much better size for just four people.  The result- new favorite cheesecake.  Make one, do it.

I went a graham cracker crust, a lavender cheesecake, and a lavender-blackberry sour cream topping.  It's a couple different steps, and you do have to put it back in the oven after adding each element, so it does take a bit of time to make the finished product.  But it's worth it.

Graham Cracker Crust

from The Joy of Cheesecake

Makes enough for a 9-in pan

(if you are making a 7-in pan like I did, you will have leftovers- that's ok)

1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs

6 tbsp melted butter

1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine all ingredients, mix well.  Press the crumb mixture evenly along the bottom of a pre-greased springform pan, and about 1'' up each side.  Bake for 5-10 minutes.  Let cool before adding filling.

Lavender Cheesecake

Recipe adapted from Mt. Shasta Lavender Farms for 7-inch pan

4 ounces heavy cream

2 tsp dried lavender buds

14 ounces cream cheese

2.5 ounces sugar

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine lavender and heavy cream in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil over medium heat.  Immediately remove from heat and let rest for 10 minutes.  Strain cream and discard lavender.

Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until very smooth- approximately 3 minutes.  Add lavender-infused heavy cream and continue to mix for an additional 3 minutes on medium-high, or until smooth. Whisk eggs and sugar in a separate bowl.  Add to cream mixture and gently beat until smooth.

Pour into pre-baked crust in springform pan and bake for 40-50 minutes or until set.  It is best to also place a large pan filled with water 1 rack below the cheesecake to allow for humidity in the oven during baking.  This reduces the chance of your cheesecake developing cracks.

Blackberry Lavender Topping

Adapted from The Joy of Cheesecake

makes enough for 1 7-inch cheesecake

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tbsp lavender sugar (or just use regular sugar and add a few lavender buds)

1 tsp vanilla extract

3-4 blackberries

Preheat oven to 450°.

Muddle blackberries, set aside.  Combine sour cream, sugar, and vanilla.  Whisk until smooth.  Add blackberries, a bit at a time, until desired color and flavor are reached.

Bake for 5-7 minutes or until set.

When your cheesecake is done you should allow it to slowly cool in order to prevent cracks.  I left mine in the turned-off oven with the door propped open until the oven reached room temperature.  When the cheesecake is cooled to room temperature you should put it in the fridge- still in the pan though.  You can take it out of the pan after a few hours in the fridge, just run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan first.  And there you have it- a lovely lavender cheesecake!

Bon Appetit
Margaret

Orange and Ginger Beer Cupcakes

Sometimes I still like to play dress up.  On this particular day my baking buddies and I had decided to go retro and dress up 50's style.  We were having trouble figuring out a cupcake to match our theme, when I stumbled upon a cute, retro-looking can of ginger beer in the fridge.  One of my friends suggested adding orange, and thus the Orange and Ginger Beer Cupcakes were born.  The flavors go incredibly well together.

Orange Ginger Beer Cupcakes

adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes • makes 12

Ingredients

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 sticks butter

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp club soda

3/4 cup ginger beer

2 tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

Preheat oven to 350°.

Beat butter and brown sugar until creamy in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Add eggs one at a time.  Once combined, add orange zest.

In a separate bowl combine flour and baking powder.  Sprinkle with club soda and mix.  Combine orange juice and ginger beer in a measuring cup.  Alternate adding wet and dry mixtures to the butter/sugar mix, beginning and ending with dry.  Mix well after each addition.  Distribute batter between 12 cupcake liners.  Bake in pan for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Orange Buttercream

Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes generously

1 stick butter

3-4 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp orange zest

1 tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice

1 tbsp milk or half and half

Beat butter in electric mixer on high for several minutes until creamy.  Add sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.  After 2 cups of sugar have been added, add milk, orange juice, and zest.  Continue adding sugar until desired sweetness is reached.

We enjoyed our cupcakes with a glass of mint lemonade and retro napkins.  Bon Appetit!

Margaret

Lavender Honey Cupcakes

So as witnessed by my previous post about my adventures on Lavender Hill Farms, I have a bit of lavender kicking around my kitchen.  Well obviously I had to make cupcakes.

One of my good friends had found this recipe from Kitchen Chronicles awhile ago, and we had already been planning on making them.  It was even better to know that I had fresh, hand picked lavender to use!

The cupcakes came out beautifully.  They didn't rise too much in the cups, so I probably would fill them a bit more next time and only make 10 or so rather than the 12 the recipe calls for.  Other than that they were absolutely perfect.  The lavender adds such a special and unique flavor, and the honey cream cheese frosting is to die for.

And by the way, they go fantastically with a good cup of espresso.

Margaret

Lavender Harvest

So while I was up in northern Michigan, escaping the DC heat and enjoying some beach time with family, I managed to stumble upon one of the most wonderful sort of places.

Isn't it gorgeous?  Lavender Hills Farm, just outside of Boyne City, Michigan, is absolutely stunning.  And not only is it beautiful and smells like heaven, but they let you pick your own lavender.  Naturally, one visit was not enough.

During the time I was there three different varieties were reading for cutting.  One was grosso, a variety that has a nice strong scent and is mainly used in sachets and as decorative lavender.  The other two, munstead and hidcote, are culinary varieties.  They differ from the other varieties like grosso in that they do not contain camphor, a chemical which adds a bitterness to the taste.

I picked some of each variety, but kept each separate.  Once they are cut, the lavender stalks will start to dry and some of the buds will begin to drop.  You want to save all of those buds, and I didn't want to mix up my culinary and non-culinary varieties!

Once picking is done, you need to lay them out to dry.  They will dry regardless of how they are stored, but for best results you should lay them out in a cool, dry place.  I put mine on two camping mats in my grandma's garage.

After a few days, depending on the weather, the lavender should be dried and the buds ready to harvest.  When the lavender stalks have started dropping a good number of buds and the others easily come off, they are ready for the next step.  To remove the buds from the stems, grab a small bunch of lavender and roll the section with the buds between your hands.  Keep rolling until most of the buds are released.  A few of the last ones you may have to pluck off the stem by hand.

You can use the lavender at this stage, but I definitely recommend doing the last portion, which is screening and sorting the lavender.  The lavender that comes off the stalks has bits of dried stem and leaves mixed in with the buds, so the next step removes those bits which detract from the flavor if you want to bake or cook with your lavender.

I took a bit of screen material and stretched it over the top of a box to make my screen apparatus.  Then, take a bit of your unsorted lavender and place it on one side of your screen.  Use your fingers to gently slide the buds forward, pushing the leaves and stems to the side.  This does take a bit of time, but it is well worth it.  In the picture below, of my hidcote lavender, the left bag has not been sorted and the right bag has been.  See the difference?  Definitely worth a bit of time.  Once you have your lovely sorted lavender, it's ready for baking!  There are tons of lavender recipes, and I'll be putting a couple up shortly!

Happy Lavender Harvesting!
Margaret

Bakery Review: Simply Cupcakes

In the summer we all travel to get away from regular, daily life.  I guess one thing I will never be able to (or want to!) get away from is cupcakes.  So even in Northern Michigan it seems I can locate a cupcake shop.

Simply Cupcakes, a cute little place in Traverse City, MI, was actually spotted by my mom who suggested going in to grab a cupcake (or six).  We ended up getting a half dozen to split with the family.  We picked creamsicle, peanut butter, caramel pecan, blueberry, sweet and salty, and caramel toffee.

These are BIG cupcakes.  Not quite Crumbs cupcake size, but they are more muffin-sized than the dainty little standard cupcakes.  They are also piled high with frosting.  These two factors combined make them rather hard to eat!  Most of my family reverted to a fork.

I'm going to continue to compare these cupcakes to Crumbs cupcakes for several reasons.  They all had prominent flavors between the dense cake and the light swiss meringue buttercream, and many of them were filled.  However, I found the lighter colored cakes a bit dry and dense for my preference.  The clear winner of the flavors was the sweet and salty- the chocolate cake was extremely moist and the density complemented the flavor very well.  The light buttercream was the perfect complement with just a bit of crunch from the pretzels on top.  Unfortunately the dense cake didn't work as well with the lighter caramel cupcake or the peanut butter one.

However, these were not by any means bad cupcakes, I would just stick to their chocolatier flavors.  Plus, their swiss meringue buttercream is absolutely fantastic.  I never have the patience for swiss meringue, but it is really wonderful on a dark cupcake!

Margaret

Raspberry Angel Cupcakes

This was my first attempt at angel food cake, and I was really pleased with the results.  I have always enjoyed angel food cake but never had the courage to try it out.  I was looking for a really light cake a few days ago, and decided to just go for it.

I found this recipe from How Sweet It Is and followed it exactly.  I even sifted the flour AND powdered sugar (which I am usually too lazy to do).  I divided the recipe by 3, since I wasn't making these for any special event and there weren't too many friends around to pawn them off on, and it turned out to make 9.

The cupcakes turned out beautifully, and I frosted them with a standard cream cheese-buttercream with a dash of raspberry and lemon extract.  Essentially I whipped half a stick of butter, two ounces of cream cheese, two cups of powdered sugar, a dash of each extract, and a dash of half-and-half.

And voila! beautiful, light, raspberry angel cakes!  These would have also been good with a dollop of raspberry jam filled in the center of the baked cakes.  Oh well, next time!

Margaret

Lemon Poppyseed Mini Muffins

What happens when the blueberry muffins that you baked a few days ago run out?  Lemon poppyseed muffins happen.  At least they did yesterday afternoon.  I love having a freshly baked pastry for breakfast everyday, and as long as you freeze them, muffins generally stay nice and fresh.

Lemon poppyseed is probably my favorite flavor of muffin ever.  Actually though, I have a hard time choosing any other option when lemon poppyseed is available.  However, I rarely make them.  Not sure why.  So when I discovered that we had poppyseed AND lemon in the house I couldn't resist giving these a go.

I adapted Joy the Baker's recipe by changing the size to mini muffins and the baking time to 9 minutes. I also used vanilla yogurt instead of buttermilk/sour cream.  I'm not sure if it was the flavor of the yogurt, but I kind of lost the lemon in these muffins.  Next time I would double the juice and zest.  Or maybe my lemon was just too wimpy.

Margaret