Oh, the things about which I obsess. My office recently held a bake-off and I stressed over my entry way too much -- just ask my family! I was torn between known crowd-pleasers (like these Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes) and something new. In the end, I decided to follow my husband's advice and "go bold" with these lemon lavender cupcakes.

This recipe, inspired by Sweetapolita, features amazingly moist lemon buttermilk cake, lemon curd filling, and lavender-infused buttercream frosting. I then topped them with lemon lavender shortbread cookies for some extra oomph.

Lavender is definitely not for everyone, but I've found that most people really like the subtle flavor it adds to baked goods, and when coupled with lemon, it's amazingly refreshing. I won't lie -- these cupcakes take longer than most simply because there are so many elements to them (cake, lemon curd, butter cream, lavender-infusion, shortbread cookies), but I promise they are so worth it (they did earn me first place in the bake-off!).

Get the full recipe here: LEMON LAVENDER CUPCAKES

Other notes:

The lace-looking cupcake wrappers are from Michael's.
You need culinary lavender for this recipe. I found a great option on Amazon.
To achieve the perfect shade of lavender, I combined two drops of pink with one drop of blue gel from Wilton's Color Right Performance Color System. Americolor also has great shades of purple -- just add slowly so you don't oversaturate the lavender color.