Simply Delicious Lemon Lavender Cupcakes

For Simply Delicious Lemon Lavender Cupcake delight keep reading!

1. Quality of Ingredients

Quality is everything in cooking and baking. It makes your recipe shine so that others will be begging for your secret. Even for these Simply Delicious Lemon Lavender cupcakes, you will find when you invest in a few quality ingredients, your recipe will shine no matter how basic it is. Be sure to purchase these staples to add to your pantry. You will not regret it!

2. Essential Oils

I recently discovered essential oils for personal use. They were a long time item on my “to-do” list to incorporate into our daily life, and once I did, they did not disappoint!
However, because quality is of the utmost importance, it is critical to purchase essential oils that have a mark of high esteem. Considering, I cannot recommend DOTERRA essential oils highly enough. Since DOTERRA is a company that prides itself in quality assurance, you can be sure your cupcakes are aromatic, safe and delicious!
You can learn more about this amazing company, and their lavender oil HERE.

Lavender oil specifically graded for dietary use is critical in creating these Simply Delicious Lemon Lavender cupcakes. Just a few drops add enough gusto to the batch of these beauties to enchant your guests!

3. Whole Bud Lavender

Whole bud Lavender is dear to me. This stems from many years ago, when I was a bright eyed eighteen year old living in Cambodia. Every week, I would trek to a tiny rooftop French cafe and order a flower shaped Lemon Lavender cookie, with a Jasmine tea. The very aroma of these combinations marked my memory forever. These delightful cupcakes are a friendly nod to those days of adventure.

Thus, one of the first ingredients you will hunt down for these Simply Delicious Lemon Lavender cupcakes, is whole bud lavender. This is a critical ingredient because it gives your cupcakes a little extra delicate punch of aroma, and when sprinkled on top, it adds a whimsical suggestion of their flavour.

Hence, I went from world trekker to a “Mama of seven”. With the arrival of my seventh baby’s first birthday, I wanted to create a remarkable cupcake that had ingredients simple enough to be enjoyed by everyone, and that stood out from a typical cupcake. Thus, this Simply Delicious Lemon Lavender Cupcake recipe was born, in the warmth of my kitchen, on a cold snowy day in March.

In a fine food store nearby, they house a variety of exotic spices and flavours. I often stop by to grab our favourite locally roasted organic coffee, and they just so happened to have whole bud lavender.

2. Just a Few Ingredients

The rest of the ingredients can be very easily acquired at your local supermarket or in your own backyard. Perfectly plump lemons, White Cake Flour (Non-GMO if possible), eggs, milk, salt, and pure vanilla, are the only base necessities you need to make this dessert pop!

MAKE IT!

Simply Delicious Lemon Lavender Cupcakes
With Honey Coconut Buttercream Frosting

Step 1.

Begin each recipe with a sense of humour and joy. This, I have found, to be more critical than the ingredients themselves. As amateur bakers, we often “fail forward” a few times before we find success with our food. Thankfully, this recipe is so simple a child could easily master it, but the “light-hearted” approach is always the best assistant in the kitchen.

Step 2.

Heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (slightly cooler if your oven runs hot…you do not want to burn your first batch!). If you are using silicone or paper baking cups, set them in an easily accessible place in your kitchen, ready to fill. However, if you are using a tin cupcake mold, lightly grease and flour each cup, being careful to remove excess flour by gently tapping upside down.

Step 3.

Next, Measure out 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 tsp of Baking Powder, and 1/4 tsp of Salt. Blend well with a whisk.

In a separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup of brown sugar, beating until creamy by hand or with a stand mixer. Fold in eggs, being careful of shells and add milk gradually as you mix. Afterwards, add 2-4 drops of high quality lavender essential oil (for dietary purposes), and 1-2 drops of high quality lemon essential oil or the squeeze half of one fresh lemon. The oil will be more impressionable than the squeeze of lemon in your cupcake, but feel free to use what you have on hand. Next, add 1 teaspoon of Pure Vanilla Extract and the dry ingredients you had set aside. Lastly, sprinkle 2 teaspoons of Whole Lavender Buds into the mix. Blend until smooth.

Step 4.

Begin filling the baking cups half-full with batter. I personally, prefer mini silicone cupcake cups. They are environmentally friendly and their tiny size lend a charm to these delicately flavoured treats!

Step 5.

Pop in the oven and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12-18 minutes (depending on the size of your cupcake molds) until “slightly” golden on top or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven (if using a tin baking mold, let stand for 2-3 minutes before from removing from pan). If frosting, allow to cool completely.

Step 6

A delectable addition to this recipe, is a rich buttercream topping. Thus, I chose to make a Coconut Honey Lemon buttercream frosting, to finish these treats off with zest! But you can make a less “punchy” buttercream, if you prefer a milder flavour, by simply eliminating the coconut and lemon, and replacing the honey with 1 tsp of vanilla and a drop of lavender essential oil.

Coconut Honey Lemon Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

Directions:

First, beat butter on high with a stand mixer for 1 minute or until fluffy. Add in powdered sugar and blend until creamy. Next, add the unsweetened raw coconut, unsweetened shredded coconut, honey, Lemon oil and lemon zest. Blend until very fluffy, adding in extra powdered sugar until preferred consistency is achieved for frosting. Adjust flavour according to taste, by diminishing or adding in more or less of oil and coconut.

Variations of Lemon Lavender Cupcakes:

• You can Substitute the vanilla cake base for a chocolate base, if you prefer a richer cake.
• I made this Lemon Lavender Cupcake recipe for our son’d first birthday and all of our children except for one, LOVED them. But if you have a child who is a little more sensitive to new flavours, just adding 1-2 drops of lemon oil with an extra teaspoon of vanilla makes a subtler flavour that is a perfect fun birthday cake for parties.
• Another option is playing with some food grade essential oils to find your preference in flavour. Essential oils are delightful in cake recipes. For example, try replacing the lemon oil with a sweet orange, tangerine, or even peppermint oil for delicious variations!
• An additional way to variate the flavour, is to keep the base but try different buttercream frostings, glazes or even eliminate the topping altogether.
• I personally prefer these sweet cupcakes in mini silicone cupcake cups which you can find HERE. But there are so many options. You could even try a donut pan for baked Lemon Lavender Donuts and add a zesty glaze!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

SHOP THIS POST:

• DOTERRA Oils
• Whole Lavender Buds
• Mini Silicone Baking Cups
• Stand Mixer
• MAKE YOUR OWN Homemade PURE Vanilla Extract instead of Buying! Click HERE for the recipe!

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