These Lavender and Honey Cupcakes make the most of beautiful, fragrant ingredients that can easily be locally sourced. Get the recipe below.
Botanical bakes
Lavender and honey are two ingredients I love to bake with. Lavender might be an unusual choice but when used sparingly it can add a wonderful, perfume like quality to your bakes. Honey also has the sweet, floral notes that can take a cake from good to great.
I’m lucky enough to live somewhere where I can easily source local ingredients. Just a short drive away we have lavender fields, pick your own fruit farms and local honey producers. This recipe makes the most of them.
Substitutes
If you don’t fancy hand picking your own lavender to add fragrance to your sugar or to decorate the top you can now buy lavender sugar in supermarkets (such as Sainsbury’s and Waitrose). It would be fab if you could use local honey in your cakes too, but any old jar of runny honey will do the trick!
The recipe
My favourite thing about these cakes is the delicacy of the flavours.
The honey gives the cakes a beautiful, deep golden finish but the flavour is mellow and rich. The lavender gives a flowery note which dances on your taste buds.
Find out how to make them below.
Lavender and Honey Cakes
Ingredients
For the cakes
- 150 grams butter
- 100 grams lavender sugar see note 1
- 50 grams honey
- 2 large eggs
- 150 grams self raising flour
For the decoration
- 2-3 sprigs lavender
- 225 grams icing sugar
- 100 grams soft butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
Instructions
- Sieve the sugar to ensure there are no large pieces of lavender. Cream together the sugar, butter and honey until soft, pale and creamy.
- Beat the eggs together in a small bowl and gradually add to the creamed sugar and butter. Whisk quickly until a smooth batter has formed.
- Next spoon in a quarter of the flour at a time, folding it into the cake batter before adding more.
- Once a thick, smooth and aerated cake batter has formed, spoon it evenly into cake cases.
- Place in the centre of the oven and cook for 20mins at gas mark 4 until they are golden.
- Take the cakes out of the oven when they are springy and a knife inserted into the cakes comes out clean.
- Straight out of the oven, brush them with a little more runny honey, and then leave them on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cool, cream together the butter and icing sugar. When a soft butter cream has formed, stir in the vanilla paste.
- Pipe the cakes with a beautiful rose swirl, drizzle over a little honey and top with fresh lavender sprinkles.
Notes
Nutrition
Make it vegan
Since moving to a plant based diet I've found great joy in making some of my old recipes egg and dairy free. For advice on making this, and many other recipes vegan, check out my Big Vegan Baking Guide.
More cupcake recipes
For the full range of cake recipes on the blog check out the Cake Recipe Collection.
Here you'll find everything from cupcakes to muffins, loaf cakes and layer cakes. The list is (almost) endless!
Xinmei @ Pudding Pie Lane says
Love the photography in the 3rd photo there! Very pretty 🙂
Emmyw says
Thanks hun!!! I was always very arty at a younger age, but food photography has always managed to escape me!
Eleanor says
Hello! These look so good! I'm hoping to make some in mini loaf tins, using lavender I picked with my Mum in local fields. I just wondered if you have any tips on storing them? Do rhe cakes freeze well, preferably with the icing/frosting? I realise this is a rather old post so I'm not sure if you'll even see this comment, but thanks anyway!
Emma says
Hi Eleanor
Thank you for your message. I haven't tried it with this exact recipe but sponge cake generally freezes quite well, as does buttercream. I would freeze them separately though and then thaw before decorating. Hope that helps!
Eleanor says
Thank you so much! I can't wait to try it
Eleanor says
Sorry, another quick question - can I freeze the cakes (without icing) with the honey brushed on? I've just made them in mini loaf tins and they've come out great so far, I'm waiting for them to cool before I wrap them and freeze them
Emma says
So sorry I've only just seen this! There is a chance the honey will crystallise. Do let me know how you get on!
Eleanor says
They came out great, thank you so much!