Last year Brad brought two kinds of mint home from his work up in La Honda. One was chocolate mint and he said he and the kids called the other one "fruity loops." I liked them both, but fruity loops the best. It literally smells like fruit loops! The plant flourished in our yard along with the chocolate mint. We still didn't know the proper name, so last month when I needed to start thinking about my herb for the iron cupcake challenge, I looked it up online. To my surprise, it was called lemon balm. I had never heard of it before! Apparently it is a really popular herb for lemon teas and it also helps sooth bug bites and herpes.. haha! I guess the greek name for it- melissa something- makes reference to bees. Totally makes sense because there are always bees all over my plant! Education!
Mystery solved, I worked out my recipe.. in my head. Had no time to actually try it out before the challenge. I started by making lemon balm butter by mincing up the lemon balm in Brad's vitamix blender and whipping it up with butter in my mixer. I let the butter/lemon balm honeymoon for a few days in the fridge.
The weekend FLEW by. I overbooked for Sunday.. lots going on in the morning followed by baby³ shower in SF at 7pm (I baked choco cupcakes for dessert). I got out of the shower by 9, and booked it home to learn the Lost finale was 3 hours long! I planned to bake before the finale, but I knew I couldn't stay up until 3, and Lost had to be watched before all the coworkers spoiled it the next day. So.. I watched Lost (still not sure how I feel about the finale), got to bed at 12 (tg for dvr and skipping commercials) and woke up at 5:00 to bake my balm bombs. Okay I actually got out of bed at 5:30 :)
I needed a butter heavy recipe for both the cake and frosting, because that's where my herb was at. I went for a basic lemon cupcake, but only used half a meyer lemon (recipe called for 4 regular lemons) because I wanted my herb to stand out. I also subbed some plain applesauce for one of the eggs because... I was out of eggs, haha. The cupcakes came out great, just a little bigger than I had hoped for. On to the frosting.. I went for a honey cream cheese frosting, but had to find one that used butter (not as easy as you'd think!). I found something I liked and tweaked it slightly to add more honey and butter so it was herbtastic. It still came out heavy on the cream cheese side, but it was 6:55 on a Monday morn and I had to be at work in a little over an hour, so, I moved on. Decorating was... a disaster. I used a flower tip hoping to make pretty ribbon swirls. Well, the herbs clogged up the fine tip and the result was a swirly disaster looking brain. Herbs on the brain!! Haha. I garnished with some dried lemon slices brad helped me dry out the night before. They didn't look cute, but I counted on them being cute in numbers all lined up on the tray at Leland.
This time there were only 10 contestants.. a very low number. But, there was no lack of tasters! Everything went quick. There were a couple of spit outs, and none that I really liked- not even my own, haha. Although, I have to admit, mine was my favorite. The highest score I gave for taste, which was a 4/5, went to #7, but I don't even remember what flavor that was. It didn't end up winning.
Things moved quickly.. and winners were announced around 8:30. Most creative went to this really cute looking cupcake that was italian themed. 3rd place went to a cute pair who made lemongrass cupcakes. 2nd place.. WAS ME! Haha. I was super excited and shocked, totally didn't expect to win :) Very fun to win when you are sure you're about to lose. 1st place went to a woman who made ginger cupcakes with a rose/flower frosting topped with a sugared rose petal. Her's looked very good, but the frosting was like eating potpourri. I'm not being a poor sport but I really didn't like the flavor and didn't realize anybody else did. It was very elegant looking though and might have gotten high marks for the appearance. Also, I didn't know ginger was an herb. I still need to educate myself, apparently!
Had a ton of fun, especially because JoAnna came out for this one. She plans to bake next time. Now I'll have some real competition!! :P
My Lemon Balm Bombs:
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Lemon Brain Bombs! I want one! Ginger isn't really an herb; "herb" refers to the green leafy part of a plant that's used sparingly in cooking for flavor. Ginger is technically a spice, as it is a rhizome, which is an underground "rootstock" portion of a plant. Anyway, I'm sure first place's cupcakes were great, but you're the real winner in my mind!
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