In a Haze of Lavender

I've been really busy with a new boss at work, my volunteer group getting back into action and my attempts to go to the gym have made me a very busy girl. So, I've got a full plate, right? So, I don't know what I was thinking when I thought about tackling this recipe at 8:30 PM on a Thursday night, while I should be packing for my romantic get-away with my husband and should be polishing a presentation I should be giving tomorrow morning in front of my new boss (exhale)!

Citizen Cake started as a cult-style bakery in San Francisco and I've followed their proprietor Elizabeth Faulkner for awhile. She's so creative and doesn't see boundaries when she's putting together flavors and ingredients. She seems to tackle tough culinary questions like, "Why can't you use curry when baking?"
So, with that kind of hard-rocker baking philosophy, I found a recipe for Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate-Orange Buttercream. Doesn't your mouth just start to water up when you read that? I decided to make cupcakes instead of the full cake, I thought it would be easier to pon them off on my co-horts that way.

The recipe upon first read through seemed manageable. Then I started baking and things went south really quick. I had just finished my sifting and mixing in parts of different stuff when I saw a line in the recipe that said, "take your luke warm melted chocolate and gently fold in." Where in the world was the step that said, "MELT YOUR FREAKING CHOCOLATE FIRST (exhale)!" So franticly, I get a double broiler started and melt 8 oz of chocolate, let it cool and fold it in. Yeah, umm, it was only supposed to be 4 oz. I decided to not worry, I thought, they'll just be fudgier than normal devil's food cake, right?

We'll, I was close to right, they were dense, but still had good flavor. The icing wasn't as dramatic, but because I was making cupcakes instead of the cake itself, I had more than double of what I needed. So, I'm thinking that yet another cake is in order....I don't want to be wasteful.
We've got a lot to catch up on...I can't wait to tell y'all about the trip my husband surprised me with this weekend. All you "Where in the world is Carmen San Diego fans, can you guess where we went?"