Friday, October 1, 2010

Do you know you can bake with lavender?

I know. *hanging head* It's been 2 weeks since I posted something (and I try so hard to post once a week!) My excuse: preparing an opera role and training for a marathon. Am I forgiven?

Last week, in between singing at church and singing at opera rehearsal, I bought some lavender from the farmers market by the Natural History Museum.
My mission was to emulate a brownie I loved when I worked at Cafe Lalo.

The brownies were easy enough to make. I used the Supernatural Brownie recipe and added about 2 more tablespoons of flour to make the brownies a little less fudge like.

I wanted to make some sort of white chocolate ganache/glaze to put over the brownies, so I started with white chocolate chips.
Then I poured the heavy cream that I had just heated to boiling point over the chocolate.
I whisked until combined and let cool. THEN (drum roll please), I added the lavender.
That's right. I wanted to make a white chocolate lavender topping to put on the brownies.

My topping turned out a little thinner than I expected, so I set it in the fridge overnight which seemed to do the trick.
White Chocolate Lavender Ganache/Glaze
Ingredients needed:
8 oz White chocolate
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 teaspoon baking lavender

Put 8oz of white chocolate in a large bowl. Bring the heavy cream to boiling and remove from heat. Pour over white chocolate. For a heavier topping, add more white chocolate. Whisk until fully combined and smooth. Let cool. Add lavender. (Add more than a teaspoon for a stronger taste.) Once cooled completely, feel free to put in fridge to make it a little firmer.

Erika's Extra: If you don't want to chomp on the grainy texture of the lavendar, feel free to blend in a food processor with 1/4 cup of sugar and then add that to the mixture.
Bake well and prosper!
Lavender on FoodistaLavender

10 comments:

  1. I love lavender, but I've been so afraid to cook with it after a horrible experience! A friend made a lemon lavender cake, and honestly, it tasted like soap! I'm too afraid now to try to cook with it for fear that I'll serve my guests soap cake!

    But this looks pretty good.... I may have to give it a shot again...

    Katie P
    Herb Chopper Giveaway!

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  2. No, you are most certainly not forgiven. You’re last post was a healthy dessert post and therefore does not count as a post at all.

    I tried to make this recipe but the white chocolate chips kept falling into my mouth so I gave up (after I was full). The same thing happens when I try to make anything with peanut butter cups… Weird.

    Take care,

    Ron

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  3. This recipe looks great! I really want to try it. I was wondering why you choose not to infuse the cream with the lavender before you make the ganache? Would it be too weak? Sorry if this is a dumb question >.<

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  4. Katie - Oh dear! Lemon and lavender DOES sound soap-esque. You MUST try it with chocolate. :)

    Anonymous - You could totally infuse the lavender with the cream. I just wanted to make a point to people I was serving that it WAS indeed lavender and it WAS indeed edible.

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  5. I did not know that, until you explained it to me in opera rehearsal!

    This blog is adorable, it is going into my "Face it. bored" bookmark list to peruse on a semi-regular basis. And I can always modify the recipes to be gluten-free :)

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  6. Ive enjoyed reading your posts and I really like your recipes here.if you wont mind, I'd love to guide Foodista readers to this post. Just add the lavender widget at the end of this post and it's good to go. Thanks!

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  7. Alisa - Thanks for stopping by! You got it! (Just added the lavendar widget. I will have to check out more of Foodista. Thanks!)

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Thanks for taking time to leave a message! xo - EB