I normally dislike icing. It's too sweet and tastes like nothing but sugar. However, I recently made honey spice cakes and iced them with Martha Stewart's lavender icing, and it was delicious and easy to make. I think I could adapt the same recipe to make any sort of herb/spice/floral icing.

Suggest to me tasty combinations of cake and herb/spice/floral icing. What other flavors go well with lavender? What goes well with basil? What about something like tarragon?

Note: I hate anise and bananas.

ETA: Honey cakes (modern) Definitely do the "soak in honey." I took them to a party, and people fell on them like starving direwolves. They were taking thirds and fourths.
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movingfinger: (Default)

From: [personal profile] movingfinger


Tarragon has a distinctive anise taste, to me.

Lemon verbena would be an excellent herb to try this with. Certain geranium flowers might also work---rose geranium, possibly. Lemon thyme, or even plain French thyme, is good, again paired with citrus. Ginger tends to work well in that range of combinations too.

Basil with lemon or orange---something citrus---are fairly usual pairings. Basil and curry flavors are good. I don't see the cake recipe---I would use cardamom as the primary spice with herbal flavors, rather than cinnamon, nutmeg, or mace.
genarti: Knees-down view of woman on tiptoe next to bookshelves (Default)

From: [personal profile] genarti


I once had a citrus-chevre cheesecake (lemon-orange, I think) with lavender whipped cream. I don't normally like cheesecake, but this one was glorious.

I also had a lavender-mint milkshake the other day. The ice cream was vegan (coconut-based), and I think vanilla-flavored. Also an excellent combination, I thought.
kore: (Default)

From: [personal profile] kore


You are the second person I know who hates bananas.
17catherines: Amor Vincit Omnia (Default)

From: [personal profile] 17catherines


Lemon and orange are both lovely with lavender. Basil is sort of aniseedy, in my book, so whatever you think goes well with that (probably citrus again). I think strawberries would work with basil, too.

From: [personal profile] indywind


Rosemary is a close relative of lavender, and tastes good if unusual in sweets, so might be another herb option for icing. Rosemary goes well with honey flavor, or buttery flavor for cupcakes--honey cakes, poundcake, yellow butter cake.

Mint and lavender coordinate well together.

Lavender and blueberry coordinate well together --perhaps lavendar icing on blueberry muffin/cupcakes.

Mint herbal icing with mint-extract-enhanced cake. Or chocolate-mint (the sort of mint that is aromatic of chocolate, not cocoa plus mint) on chocolate cupcake.

Rose or rose-scented-geranium icing (intensified with rosewater from middle-eastern grocer if you like the flavour) on almond-flavored cupcake, or India-spice or cardamon cupcake.

Tarragon (optionally with lemon) icing on lemon cupcakes.

From: [identity profile] megfuzzle.livejournal.com


lemon and basil are a favorite of mine!
mint icing might be kind of good too...

From: [identity profile] miz-hatbox.livejournal.com


Lemon and rosemary? (or thyme?)
Orange and cinnamon?

From: [identity profile] arielstarshadow.livejournal.com


Did I miss the posting of the recipe for the honey spice cakes? Because dang, those sound good!

From: [identity profile] marzipan-pig.livejournal.com


I read that website's name (inn at the crossroads) as 'innana at the crossroads' and was reading for Sumerian paganism content!

From: [identity profile] tool-of-satan.livejournal.com


I haven't tried it, but I think tarragon would go well with something sweet (there are brands of tarragon-flavored soda in some countries). Maybe on a lemon-flavored cake?

From: [identity profile] fadethecat.livejournal.com


My god. I may need to try making those. I do have guests coming this weekend who I could experiment on...

From: [identity profile] wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com


I love rose and lemon, lime and basil.

And thanks for the recipe links ~ can't wait to experiment!

From: [identity profile] vom-marlowe.livejournal.com


I think muddled-mint would be lovely (one of my favorite kinds of ice cream). Rose water, rose petals, or violets would also be delicious, I think.

I would definitely put violets on the cupcakes, because I am weird like that. If I made it with mint, I'd probably put nasturtiums on the cakes--another option would be orange flower.

Basil and lemon is a good combo, and I think that lemon balm (a variety of mint basically) would be good in its own way, although not everyone likes it.....

Now I'm really craving these!
zdenka: A bowl of blueberries and strawberries. (food)

From: [personal profile] zdenka


For a not-too-sweet frosting, I sometimes make a bittersweet chocolate ganache and layer fresh mint leaves on top.

I also have a jar of orange cardamom sugar, and putting it on or in things makes them really delicious. So you could try orange-cardamom without the sugar. With a touch of cinnamon too, maybe.

I've saved the recipes for honeycakes and lavender frosting -- they sound really delicious, and I will have to try making them sometime.
Edited Date: 2012-06-05 07:05 pm (UTC)

From: [identity profile] mrissa.livejournal.com


Strawberry cake or blackberry cake would probably go well with lavender or basil or tarragon. I mean the kind of strawberry or blackberry cake with loads of pureed fruit in the batter, not the kind with lumps of fruit, but the latter kind might be okay too.
ext_2472: (Default)

From: [identity profile] radiotelescope.livejournal.com


I made basil walnut cookies (thinking "pesto", although I did not go so far as to include garlic or cheese). The cookies came out nicely. One might imagine basil frosting on walnut cake -- but I find myself more interested by the idea of walnut frosting (with ground walnuts) on a simple yellow cake with a lot of fresh basil in it. I mean, it would be green cake, of course.

As I noted on somebody's journal recently, lemon and lemon verbena aren't as weird a combination as you might imagine. Verbena icing on lemon cake would work, I think. It's all sorts of fragrant. If I'm wrong about this, doing it on a some-other-fruity cake would be worth trying.

Hibiscus frosting would look dramatic, to start with. It's somewhat sour, so add to sour cream frosting to offset a sweet cake? Maybe the sourness wouldn't come through at frosting concentration, though.

Off the top of my head, carrot cake and oregano frosting might work.

From: [identity profile] anait.livejournal.com


Thanks for sharing the recipe. I will have to try these! :D

I've not tried it myself, but seen strawberry and basil paired a lot recently in food blogs.

Chocolate and cardamon are a win, as in these (which are lovely!): http://icantstandup.blogspot.ca/2011/11/nieve-chocolate-pulla.html

(Ginger and chocolate are always a great combo too.)

Green tea makes a great flavouring. You can infuse it in warm water or warm milk and strain out the leaves. I once saw Green Tea Ice Cream with cherries and almonds and thought it sounded delicious! (sadly, they were all out...)

Recent adventures in Hummingbird Cake have taught me that a very small amount of pecans ground into nut flour, when folded in, make your standard cream cheese frosting even better: less sweet; a wonderful new flavour.
Edited Date: 2012-06-06 02:26 am (UTC)
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