An Herbal Sweet

I love making herbal treats -- especially herbal sweet treats which are so unexpected. Herbs are to be used in dishes savory -- not dishes sweet!

I taught another Cooking With Herbs Class tonight at Life+Style -- a private class and for dessert -- these herbal sweets!

A recipe made before -- but this time I chose to make them as cupcakes for the class. Scented with a rose geranium leaf in the bottom of each cupcake tin.
And frosted with a buttercream frosting which was also flavored with rose geranium infused sugar and tinted pink.
Each cupcake was decorated with either a sugar pansy OR a rose geranium leaf. I'm generous with my recipes and freely hand them out . . . . and I did for the potato salad and pesto that we served tonight.

But the cupcakes . . . ah, the cupcakes . . . to get the receipe, you have to visit Linderhof online!

And for those who attended the class. Here is the recipe -- for the cake -- which I made into cupcakes!

You can see the cake in all it's three layer glory here when I made it for a Garden Club Meeting at Linderhof. I didn't frost it, however but just used the filling.

LADY MARGARET JANE CAKE

3 cups cake flour

3/4 t. salt

2 t. baking powder

3/4 cup butter

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 t. vanilla (and 1/2 t. almond flavoring if you don't use the rose geranium leaves)

6 egg whites

Butter generously and flour three 8 inch round cake pans. In the bottom of each lay several perfect rose geranium leaves.

Sift the cake flour, add the salt and baking powder and sift again.

Cream the butter and then add the sugar and continue beating until well mixed and fluffy.

Add dry ingredients to the cream mixture alternately with the milk and water, beating lightly until smooth. Add the vanilla (and almond flavoring if you're not using the leaves).

Beat until stiff the egg white sand fold lightly into the cake mixture, making sure the batter is mixed together well.

Pour batter into the three prepared pans and bake in moderate oven (350) about 30 minutes or until cake is firm to a light touch of the fingers in the center of each cake. Cool on cake racks; remove rose geranium leaves.

When making a 3 layer cake, we fill with a raspberry cream filling of whipped cream and raspberry jam. Then we top it all with a fluffy frosting -- tinted pink. It HAS to be tinted pink!

For the cupcakes, I did not fill with the cream filling -- but did frost with a pink tinted frosting.

It's Friday -- which means that it's Foodie Friday and so please join Michael at Designs by Gollum to see what other treats there are this Friday!