Lavender Wedding Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache and Honey Buttercream

It's kind of a slight problem when you're at a wedding three states over, and people you barely know (talking to you Mr. Cory D) give you a hard time about the last time you updated your blog. Calm down, people. Calm down left side of the table at the rehearsal dinner. I appease you. You beat me down, made me drink an extra beer to relax and gave me to gusto to write a blog post. Ironically, it's for a wedding cake.

About a month ago, some of A's friend asked him if, oh you know, they could ever so casually get married at his cabin up in Northern Wisconsin. Standard. Normal bar talk. Being who I am, I immediately slammed my palms onto the worn wood of the Weary Traveler and offered to make a cake. Later, I was somehow also roped into being their all official-like photographer.

At this point, I'm not sure if we were even in our apartment yet or if we were still homeless and sleeping on a friends' couch. They were blurry times, friends. Don't expect me to remember such silly details of where I slept at night. Who cares where I lay my head, most concerns lie in the status of my kitchen. And all I know is that at when I offered to make my first ever wedding cake, I had never turned on my new oven.

Fact: don't do what I did. You will soon find out that your oven is about, oh, exactly 100 degrees hotter than it should be. Your delicate lavender cake will be running behind schedule, and it's so hot outside that it is cosmically impossible to keep buttercream from melting. For fun, also add on a 7+ hour car ride. Break even and call it an adventure?

Sure.

The cake may have been a bit drier than I would have intended, but my (buttercream) meltdown lead to a damned tasty ganache and a creamy honey buttercream filling. So when you make your next wedding cake, a few pointers: get an over thermometer, budget for extra time and make sure vegan White Russian ingredients are within arms reach.

Lavender Cupcakes

Adapted from Yummy Mummy

Ingredients:

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers
• 1 cup goat butter, at room temperature
• 4 eggs
• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons goat milk

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F; grease baking pans with goat butter and dust with flour.
2. Put the sugar and lavender flowers in a food processor. Process briefly to combine.
3. Tip the lavender sugar into a bowl with the butter and beat together until pale and fluffy.
4. Beat the eggs into the butter mixture, one at a time, then sift in the flour and fold gently. Stir in the milk, then spoon the mixture into baking pans.
5. Bake for about 30 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

Honey Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 1 cup goat butter, softened at room temperature
• 1/3 cup honey
• 4-5 cups powdered sugar
• Dash of goat milk

Directions:

1. Beat butter in a stand, or hand, mixer until fluffy. Add honey and beat for 2 minutes.
2. Slowly beat in powdered sugar a few tablespoons at a time until desired consistency is reached. Add goat milk to thin out buttercream if needed.

Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients:

• 9 oz whole goat milk
• 9 oz dark chocolate, finely chopped
• A few squeezes of clover honey

Directions:

1. Heat the cream in a small saucepan.  Pour over chopped chocolate, let sit for one minute, add honey, then whisk until smooth.  Place in refrigerator to cool, stirring every 10 minutes to ensure even cooling.  When desired consistency, frost cake.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

The best way to survive at the Bivouac is through bribery.  My birthday was last friday (the big 22!) and I wanted my shift covered so I could spend my birthday how I wanted.  I wanted spend time gathering up free things (mainly food) all around Ann Arbor with my little sister; we were successful!  I wanted to go out to Dominick's for dinner with my family; we ate outside and sipped on sangria.  Most importantly, I wanted to hangout with friends that night!  But I was scheduled to work!  Have no fear - bribing with baking is here!


After sending out an email with a link to my blog promising I can (try) to cook almost anything they could dream of - Andrew took the bait.  He signed a sub-slip agreeing to cover my shift with one stipulation - I would make him whole grain bread (sans any rye).  I brought this in for him the day before my birthday and I believe he had it less than 5 minutes before digging in.  It suffices to say that he's this breads biggest fan.  It wasn't too hard to make, so I think I'll make this again for my use!


PS - the loaf of bread is a little oddly shaped because I rolled the dough up so it was too long... and had to forcibly shape it into the bread pan.


Honey Whole Wheat Bread
Adapted from Photo Blog


Ingredients:

• 1 cup water (plus 4 tbsp if you're at high altitude like me)
• 1 cup milk (plus 4 tbsp for high altitude)
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tbsp (or packets) yeast
• 2 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Heat the water, milk, butter and honey on the stove using a candy thermometer. Stir occasionally. When the mixture reaches 125-130 degrees F, remove from heat. (If it's any hotter, there is a good chance the yeast could deactivate)
2. In a large bowl, mix the all purpose flour, salt and yeast. 
3. Add the heated liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix for a few minutes until evenly blended. 
4. Begin adding the whole wheat flour, add two of the cups of flour one cup at a time and gradually add the third cup during kneading. Depending on humidity, you may need more or less flour.
5. Knead for 5-10 minutes, until the dough is elastic and slightly sticky.
6. Separate the dough in half and place in two lightly greased bowls. Cover, then let rise for 45 minutes or so, until the dough looks about double in bulk.
7. Once the dough has risen, punch down and knead briefly, until pliable. 
8. Roll each section of dough with a rolling pin until it forms a flat square or rectangle, then roll the flattened dough into a snug jelly roll. Seal the seam by firmly pinching and patting the dough together. 
9. Grease your baking pan(s). Place the rolled dough into the pan, seam side down. Let rise for about 30 minutes, or until the pan is pretty well filled.
10. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-30 minutes, depending on how dark you want the crust to be. 
11. Let the bread cool COMPLETELY after removing from the oven - don't you dare slice into it until you can't feel any warmth coming off of it - even then I'd still wait 5 minutes more!

Lavender Honey Biscotti with a Lemon Glaze

I think next time I have tea with the queen, I'll make these.  They taste so elegant with a hint of the promise of sunny spring weather.  The main reason I made these is because I happened upon some culinary lavender and I really wanted to use it.  Most recipes out on the Internet with lavender are for shortbread cookies or syrups.  I get frustrated most times I make shortbread and I have no use for a syrup.  Then I saw this - wonderful!  I think this may be my favorite biscotti recipe now - it's still so crisp but it's not as sweet as most biscotti's.  And the lemon glaze I decided to top it off with?  Mmmm, I love the tang of lemon.  I brought this into The Environment Report this morning and they all loved it!  If you can recall, Lester challenged me to a "biscotti off" when I first started working there last August.  I wonder how these would fare in a biscotti off, part two...

Lavender Honey Biscotti with a Lemon Glaze

Adapted from bake.mix.stir

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons honey (I used a raspberry infused honey)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon dried lavender blossoms
• Juice of one large lemon
• Approx. ¾ cup powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a large bowl, whisk sugar and eggs until it achieves a light lemon color. Mix in honey, vanilla, zest and lavender. Sift dry ingredients over the wet mixture and mix just until dough is combined.
4. The dough will probably be a little sticky. Cut the dough in half and move one piece of dough to a parchment lined baking sheet. Using lightly floured or wet hands, stretch dough into a rough 13×2″ log. Repeat with remaining dough (you want them to be about 3″ apart on the baking sheet.) Pat down each dough a bit to flatten and to smooth the top. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until firm and golden brown – turning pan once halfway through.
5. Cool the loaves for 5-10 minutes – until you can handle them. Lower the oven temperature to 325.
6. Using a serrated knife, cut each loaf diagonally into 1/4 to 1/2″ slices. Lay slices back on the baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake 15 minutes, until dry, turning over after 7 minutes. Transfer biscotti to wire rack and cool completely.
7. In a bowl with lemon juice, add in powdered sugar one tablespoon at a time until glaze at at the consistency you want.  Drizzle on cooled biscotti and sit until dry to the touch.