Hydrangea Cupcakes: Ultra Victorian Birthday

For anniversary 23, it's flowers right? Well, Gone Girl never made it that far in Nick and Amy's arduous romance, so we many never know. Actually, a quick google search and a click to happy-anniversary.com tells us that traditionally, 23 doesn't get a gift, while the modern gift would be a silver plate. Apparently, in a traditional marriage you only get gifts every 5 years after 15 years. Don't be selfish?

So, my bad jokes aside, I've been itching to try out this decorating technique for several years now since I was first dazzled on pinterest or foodgawker. And its always been an amusing fun fact (for myself) that it was snowing on the first day of spring on birthday anniversary 0. Sadly enough, IT HAPPENED AGAIN THIS YEAR. I have so many mixed emotions about this happening. On one hand, I love symmetry and weird quirky patterns. Like the ones you'd read about in a John Green young adult novel. On the other hand, I am sick of being cold and having dry hands. Spring is such a tease in the you are so not worth it way. If spring were a person, I would not even be facebook friends with him/her.



Fortunately, even if its literally too cold outside for anything to grow, we can at least eat things that taste like flowers. Some may call a mixture of lemon-lavender cupcakes with rosewater buttercream extremely victorian, or steampunk, or just plain hipster, but I call it economical. Mainly because I have a lot of lavender and rosewater that I need to use up soon. But victorian and steampunk also sound super fun to me too, though I would think the color palette would be slightly darker.

Eating these was literally like eating a flower due to some slightly off ratios. The cupcakes were way strong on the lavender compared to lemon, so I would recommend upping the lemon zest to two lemons. The buttercream was such a mystery. Maybe it was because happy hour dulled my taste buds but I could not taste rosewater in the frosting to save my life and ended up adding at least 1-2 tablespoons in the end before giving up. But after letting the cupcakes sit overnight, it was very obvious there was rosiness coming off the cupcakes in scent and taste. So in the end, I definitely succeeded in the whole eating flowers thing.

 

Lemon Lavender Cupcakes adapted from Cupcake Project as follows (bolded lines indicate changes):

Ingredients	Instructions
1 cup (225 grams) granulated sugar	1) blend together sugar and lavender in food processor until buds are finely grounded
1 tsp lavender buds
1 3/4 cups (175 grams) cake flour, not self-rising	2) mix together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in large bowl, then combine with 1)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (57 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature	3) mix butter into 2) on med-low for ~2-3 minutes until a fine crumb forms (will be super dry!)
2 large eggs, room temperature	4  )whisk together eggs, sour cream, oil, vanilla, and zest in small bowl until smooth, then add to 3) until just combined
1/3 cup (75 grams) full-fat sour cream
1/4 cup canola oil or vegetable oil (60 ml)
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 2 lemon
2/3 cup (160 ml) whole milk	5) mix milk with 4) on low until just combined
Baking Instructions
Preheat: 350 F
Fill cupcake liners slightly above half full
Bake 14 minutes, should be very light in color, with no crumb when poked with toothpick.
Remove from pan immediately and cool.

Rosewater Buttercream adapted from i am baker. I used about 0.75 of the recipe stated, and added in rosewater and vanilla. I started running out towards the end, so definitely just use the whole recipe.

Hydrangea Tutorial also via i am baker. The piping technique itself is actually pretty straightforward if you have the right tips. It took me about 2 cupcakes to get a hang of it. Note that when she says to pipe with the smaller end out, it means the smaller end out as you draw a streak of frosting parallel to the long length of the tip, not perpendicular as I initially though.