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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.
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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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.
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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.
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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.
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mint icing might be kind of good too...
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Orange and cinnamon?
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And thanks for the recipe links ~ can't wait to experiment!
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.