Lavender honey-nut cupcakes

Say hello to the Lavender Honey-Nut Cupcakes, packed lovingly for a lunch in Philly with friends. And yes, they taste as good as they look.

I sourced the recipe from The Boozy Baker: 75 Recipes for Spirited Sweets by Lucy Baker, which I won in a Bon Appetit cookbook giveaway.

I didn't alter the cake recipe (containing almond meal, lavender buds and amaretto), but I did make some changes to the honey-amaretto buttercream. The recipe called for a start of 2 cups of confectioners sugar, then adding an additional 1-2 cups of confectioners sugar. I only had approximately 2-1/4 cups in my cupboard, so I made it work. However, I still noticed that the buttercream is a bit too sweet for my tastes, so next time (I'll be baking these for my friend's daughter's first birthday), I think I'll start with a cup of confectioner's sugar and add a little bit from there.

Because I found the buttercream's sweetness to pop too much, I added a little extra amaretto and a smidge more light cream. I also have lavender honey, but I opted for clover honey because I didn't want one flavor overpowering the rest—I think that was the right decision.

The recipe calls for lavender buds as a garnish as well, but they're kind of hard to manipulate on the buttercream (my objective was not to mangle the tops of the cupcakes with my clumsy fingers). So, as a test, I garnished two of the four cupcakes I gave to my friends and told them to report back.