Orange, Tarragon and Honey

Welcome back to another episode of cake vs cookie and today the flavour profile is orange, tarragon and honey. I have to admit that I've never actually had tarragon before and so, I had no idea what it was going to taste/smell like. When I bought the herbs, I found that they smelt like liquorice and had quite a strange flavour when I popped all the elements into my mouth together. The orange and tarragon together was refreshing and the honey brought a sweetness to it. Of course, I don't actually eat cakes and cookies and so this whole thing is judged by my mother who, every couple of days, I force-feed dessert items to.

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Note:

For this recipe, I used basic runny honey, but if you want to use different kinds of honey to experiment then I would also suggest keeping to the 2 tablespoon limit just in case. Different types of honey does different things to your bake.

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Let's take a look at how it all went down...

Orange, Tarragon and Honey

1: Cookie

Tarragon and Honey Sandwich Cookie with Orange Marmalade Filling

Ingredients:

• 5g Tarragon
• 2x Tbsp Honey
• 1x Jar of Marmalade
• 40g Light Brown Sugar
• 120g Vegan Butter
• 190g Plain Flour

How To:

1. Preheat your oven to 200/C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper
2. Cream together the butter, sugar, honey and tarragon until perfectly smooth
3. Add your flour and mix into a dough
4. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes
5. Transfer the dough to a place where you are going to roll it and roll it out to the 1/2 size of the thickness of your iPhone
6. Cut into your desired shapes with every even numbered cookie having a tiny shape cut out of the middle (I usually do this with fondant stampers because it's easy)
7. Lay the cookies out on the baking tray and bake for 15-17 minutes until slightly browned
8. Remove from the oven when baked and after 5 minutes of cooling, transfer them to a plate and put them int he fridge for a few minutes
9. Once they are cold, grab the jam and apply a thin spread of it to the whole cookie. Then, grab the even-numbered cookie with the hole in and place it atop of your cookie with jam on it. Put them back in the fridge for about 15 minutes to solidify
10. Enjoy your cookies!

Remember: the honey will give your cookie some crunch so please do not start adding lots of honey because you think the flavour won't come through. Honey's addition is more about texture than flavour - but the taste of the honey will be there in the sweetness and that's why we scale back with the sugar. You can also use 'orange blossom honey' for an even wilder taste or Manuka honey for a more crunchy bite.

2: Cake

Honey and Tarragon Cupcake with Orange and Tarragon Buttercream

Part 1: The Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2x Tbsp Honey
• 5g Tarragon
• 50g Light Brown Sugar
• 100g Vegan Butter
• 2x Tbsp Apple Sauce
• 1x Tsp Baking Powder
• 100g Self-Raising Flour

How To:

1. Line a cupcake tin with 12 cases and preheat your oven to 200/C
2. Cream together the butter, sugar, honey and tarragon
3. Add the apple sauce and cream together again
4. Add the flour and the baking powder and whisk at a high speed to make sure there are no clumps of honey anywhere in the mixture
5. Spoon this into your cupcake cases and put the tray in the oven for 15-18 minutes
6. Once baked, remove from the oven and set aside for five minutes. Then transfer the cupcakes to a separate plate and pop them in the fridge

Part 2: Orange and Tarragon Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 1x Tsp Tarragon
• 2x Tbsp Orange Marmalade
• 50g Vegan Butter
• 100g Powdered Sugar
• 2x Tsp Your Choice of Gel Food Colouring

How To:

1. Whisk up the butter on its own and then add in the tarragon and marmalade and whisk again until completely combined
2. Add the sugar and the food colouring, then whisk again for another 5 minutes
3. Put your icing in a piping bag and coat your now cooled cupcakes
4. Put them back in the fridge for ten minutes for the buttercream to solidify and then you may enjoy them

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In this situation, the winner was cake.

But my mother did say she liked them both and so, in a way, they are both winners!