Hey folks!

I have some exciting news: I quit my job! My last day of work is officially tomorrow. I am BEYOND excited.

I wish I could say that I did something heroic like this blogger from Yum and Yummer, who quit his job to pursue his food-related passions full time (beginning with embarking on an epic culinary tour of Europe, mo jealous!). But my story is much less glamorous than that — simply, I hated my job. A lot. Somewhere along the long, miserable grind of my job(s?), I realized that I had spent the last few years trying to follow a plan that wasn’t really right for me. So now I’m just recalibrating, taking a break before the Next Big Step (and BIG it is! but more on that later) to work on the things that I know will make me happy.

… like this blog!

It’s only fitting that the next recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook is for lavender cupcakes with lavender buttercream frosting. This recipe is the first one that I actually made immediately after purchasing the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook:

(iPhone camera)

See the picture above? I made those lavender cupcakes in San Francisco almost a year ago now (excuse the iPhone photo). The cupcakes are topped with pink lavender buttercream frosting and white chocolate shavings. Yum! Folks, this is evidence of history in the making because these are the batch of cupcakes that started my love for the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

Personally, lavender flavored things are always a little bit of a hit-or-miss for me. Most of the time, lavender baked goods tend to taste too soapy and floral for my liking — I can’t quite shake the feeling that I’m eating a candle or a bar of soap. But not the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook‘s lavender cupcakes! The trick here is that the cupcakes are baked with lavender-infused milk. The use of infused milk (as opposed to actual lavender buds) lends to a subtle and delicate flavor without any of the intense soapyness.

While prepping to adjust the recipe for high-altitude, I noticed that the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook‘s recipe for lavender cupcakes is almost identical to its recipe for vanilla cupcakes. The only difference between the two is that the lavender cupcakes use lavender-infused whole milk, while the vanilla cupcakes used regular whole milk. So I’m thinking that the Hummingbird Bakery vanilla cupcakes recipe is the “mother recipe” for lavender cupcakes. Meaning that my high-altitude adjustments for Hummingbird Bakery vanilla cupcakes will work perfectly well with the recipe for Hummingbird lavender cupcakes.

Sweet. In that case, easy peasy. Stay tuned for the next post containing the recipe for Hummingbird Bakery lavender cupcakes for high-altitude!