Easy Lavender Loaf Cake
Just the name, Lavender Cake, makes me think about an English summer garden. I love the calming floral fragrance of fresh lavender, which is held in both the flowers and the leaves. I also think it looks beautiful with green-grey leaves and deep blue, purple or white flowers.
If you grow lavender in your garden, this is a cake to make in high summer, late June through to August when it is at its best. Make sure that it hasn’t been treated with any pesticides or other chemicals before you use it in your cooking! If you don’t grow your own lavender, you can use culinary lavender which is available from some supermarkets and also online.
Like many of the cakes that I make, this Lavender Cake is a variation on a simple loaf cake recipe. Lavender and lemon has become a popular flavour combination in cakes and desserts. For this recipe, I combined lavender with orange, which adds a similar zesty citrus flavour. It occurred to me when I had made this cake that lavender and orange are both included in the classic Herbes de Provence herb mix from the South of France which is used in savoury dishes.
So many lavender recipes….
I use lavender mainly in sweet recipes. I make Lavender Ice Cream, which is creamy and floral and fantastic at the end of a summer dinner party. If you want to give someone a summer treat, you could do worse than make them a lavender-themed Afternoon Tea with Lavender Shortbread Biscuits and Lavender Scones. I sometimes make a Honey Cream Tea, combining Cream and Honey with the Lavender Scones, which is a great twist on an English teatime tradition. If you have a lot of fresh lavender in your garden, you can capture the flavour by making Lavender Sugar which you can use as a baking ingredient.
….and so many cake recipes!
If you like this cake, you may like some of the other loaf cake recipes that I cook regularly. They are so quick and easy to make and you can get really creative with the flavours! On other pages of this blog you can find recipes for Rosemary Cake, Thyme Cake, Earl Grey and Orange Cake,Lemon Drizzle, Blood Orange, Lime and Coconut, Rum and Banana and Ginger and Pear.
Lavender Cake
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 45
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf cake 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: English
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 4 tablespoons of milk
- 1 tablespoon of fresh or half a tablespoon of dried culinary lavender
- 125 g butter
- 175 g Lavender Sugar (use caster sugar if you do not have Lavender Sugar)
- 2 eggs
- 175 g self-raising flour
- Zest of 1 orange
For the icing:
- Juice of 1 orange
- 1 tablespoon of fresh or half a tablespoon of dried culinary lavender
- 100 g icing sugar
Instructions
- Set your oven to 180 degrees centigrade or Gas Mark 4.
- Put the milk into a small bowl and add the fresh or dried culinary lavender. Heat to scalding point and then set aside to cool. Heating the milk allows it to take on the flavour of the lavender.
- Grease a 450 g loaf tin and line the bottom with baking parchment.
- Cream the butter with the Lavender Sugar or caster sugar. (I usually soften the butter for about 30 seconds in the microwave first as it makes it much easier!)
- Gradually add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture. If it looks as if it is going to curdle, add some of the self-raising flour.
- Once the eggs have been incorporated add the rest of the self-raising flour.
- Add the lavender-infused milk and the grated zest of your orange.
- Spoon the cake mixture into your prepared loaf tin.
- Put the tin in the oven and bake for 45 minutes.
- While the cake is baking, squeeze the juice from your orange into a small bowl and add the fresh or dried culinary lavender. Heat to scalding point and then set aside to cool. Heating the juice allows it to take on the flavour of the lavender.
- When your cake is done. Remove it from the oven and place on a cooling rack.
- When the cake is completely cool. Combine the lavender-infused orange juice with the icing sugar and then pour over the cake.
Keywords: lavender, cake, loaf cake
