Food & Stuff: Earl Grey Tea Cupcakes with Vanilla-Lavender Buttercream

Well that was a mouthful,

Earl Grey Tea Cupcakes with Vanilla-Lavender Buttercream

(sounds better than frosting, huh? More legit, if you ask me!)

So I have had a love affair with Earl Grey Tea for probably the last 5 years; it's by far my "go-to" tea!

And yes, I have a "go-to" tea! Everyone should! :)

So I was hunting around Pinterest for another idea using lavender, since I have so much left over from my Lavender Lemon disaster, and low-and-behold, these little puppies popped up! So I put a few recipes together to have the Earl Grey cupcakes with lavender-esque frosting. I only messed up one thing during this baking adventure, luckily something easily replaceable...

To get us started here's the recipe:

Click to Enlarge!

TEA.TEA.TEA.TEA.

As long as you follow the recipe, it's pretty simple. What I screwed up on was I didn't watch the milk boil, thus it almost exploded everywhere. BUT DO NOT FRET! I got it all cleaned up and was able to redo that part. Also, Some of the milk evaporated, which I assume was intentional, and I think next time I would add another tea bag just to ensure total infusion of the tea flavor.

Oh and don't forget to preheat the oven to 350! It'll be totally ready to go when your cupcakes are in their cups.

They really do have nice coloring.

Would you like to know what I was listening to while baking and such? No? Well, I'm going to tell you anyways!!

Muhahahaha!

I can't remember if I've already given my upmost praise for Team Starkid, but no matter, I'm going to fangirl all over them right here, right now!

I was introduced to A Very Potter Musical my freshman year up in Humboldt (roughly 3 years ago), and was smitten at first watch. Team Starkid consists of graduates of University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, and a few other floaters; all of whom love making musicals, many of which parodies of popular culture! I'll check anything Harry Potter-related out, so this was too good to be true. Since that first musical posted to Youtube, Starkid has made 2 HP sequels, Starship (a musical about alien bugs), Me and My Dick (A musical about high school and hormones), and my personal favorite Holy Musical B@man! If you look at my iTunes, I can almost guarantee that my most listened to songs are from these musicals (specifically the B@man ones).

Here's the first part of Holy Musical B@man, I highly suggest you take the next 3 hours, or so, to watch this! And then go watch all the others!

Well I guess it's time to get back to my cupcakes!

UM HELLO!? These are amazing!

Not to sound conceited, or anything, but these are fabulous (like myself)!!! Go but some Earl Grey and bake these! I had to try one out of the oven, and man oh man, they are tastey. If I had to critique one thing, it would be that they are really sweet, remniscent of a Earl Grey Latte rather than just Earl Grey Tea. Other than that, WOW!

The Lavender-Vanilla Buttercream was super easy, I cut the recipe in half, since the cupcakes are so sweet, they won't need too much frosting. The recipe I used was:

Click to Enlarge!

I added crushed lavender to the frosting to have that Lavender-ness I so desire. (And yes, I cushed it myself!) Other than that, it was super simple, like all buttercreams.

Enjoy the following food porn...