Sweet Delights: Lemon-Blueberry Cake & Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cup Cookies (Days 243-245)

There is so much going on over here that it's taking a lot of motivation for me to sit down and get caught up on this blog.  Particularly because I know I have several things to write about.  I have sweet recipes to share, a celebration of my grandmother's 80th birthday to recap, and so many emotions I'm going through about the beginning of fall and the ability I have to stay home and be with my children and experience our wonderful lives together.  Where do I even start???

Let's start with the weekend.  (I will save my latest autumn creation for another post.)  Friday night I had a girls' night with some friends.  I made those blackjack margaritas I wrote about recently.  And for a fun little treat, I made chocolate chip cookies stuffed with mini Reese's peanut butter cups.  It's simple!  Just follow the recipe on the bag of chocolate chips, then spoon some dough into a mini muffin or tartlet pan.  Press a peanut butter cup into the center of each spoonful, then spread some more dough on top.  Bake for about 10-12 minutes at 375*.  These are delicious little bites!

Saturday we celebrated the matriarch of our family: my grandmother and her 80th birthday.  I've mentioned before how close my mother's family is, and so it was nice to have (almost) everyone together for Nana's birthday.  (My brother couldn't make it up from Georgia.)  For the occasion, I tackled my first tiered cake.  Remember the lemon-blueberry cake with lavender frosting I made in August?  Here it is again, as a special 3-tiered cake.  My Nana is a beautiful woman whose love for Jesus and her family is clearly seen.  How wonderful it was to celebrate her on Saturday!

3-Tiered Lemon Blueberry Cake w/ Lavender Buttercream Frosting
2 cups unsalted butter, softened
3 cups granulated sugar
8 large eggs, room temperature
2 TB vanilla
6 cups flour
2 TB baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups buttermilk
zest & juice of 6 lemons
3 cups fresh blueberries + 1-2 TB flour

Preheat the oven to 350*.  Butter & flour 3-4 cake pans and set aside.  (I used two 9-inch rounds for a thick bottom layer, and then one deep 8-inch round, and one deep 6-inch round.)
Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix thoroughly.  In a separate bowl, toss together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, lemon zest, and lemon juice.  Add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients to the batter.  Mix until everything is combined, being careful not to overmix.  Toss the blueberries with the extra flour so they are covered.  Carefully fold them into the batter with a spatula.
Spoon batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 40-50 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Lavender Buttercream Frosting
In a small saucepan, pour somewhere between 1-2 cups of milk (you won't use it all--a rough guess is fine).  Add 4 bags of lavender tea and steep over medium heat for about 5 minutes.  Watch carefully so the milk doesn't burn.  Turn off the heat and let the milk cool completely with the tea bags still soaking.  Remove the tea bags and refrigerate the milk in a sealed container until ready for use.

***When I made frosting, I really never measure.  I grew up watching my dad make a "special icing" to put on graham crackers as a special treat.  I've since learned that he was using the same ingredients for a buttercream frosting, just on a different scale.  So I've never really looked at a recipe or measured things out.  I'm trying to get better for the sake of this blog, but a few measurements did get overlooked here, so please bear with me!

For the 3-tiered cake, you will need about 1 pound of powdered sugar and 1 1/2 pounds of very soft butter (it's not called "buttercream" for nothing!).  Add 1-2 TB vanilla, and slowly add a little bit of the lavender milk at a time.  First add a little, then whip the frosting, and then add some more until you reach the desired thickness.  The frosting will be a beige color because of the "tea milk" so use red and blue food coloring to achieve a nice lavender color.  Gently spread on the cake and decorate as you like.