Baking with Honey I: Honey-Lavender Cake

We harvested honey a couple of weeks ago - T and me, plus S and T's friend. It was a lot of fun, if somewhat improvised... My estimate was that we got 18 kilos of honey - so I guess I ended up with about 8 kilos. I still have some from last year, so realized I'd better start experimenting more with baking and other projects using honey. Last weekend, I tried two quite different honey cake recipes. This is the first (Ottolenghi - full recipe here). It is very similar to a cake I made with L, back at Mill Hill Road in Norwich, when we had a teaparty - it was a different recipe (I still have it in my recipe folder but we were never quite sure about the quantities) - we were very proud of it then, but I never made it since. I always thought about it, so it sprang to mind instantly when I was thinking about honey recipes. I used lavender from the garden as well. I took it for C's birthday party/dinner, and it ended up being her birthday cake, with candles and all!

For the cake:
225 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
115 g sugar
115 g honey
3 eggs
245 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chopped dried lavender, plus more for garnish (used fresh)
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
110 ml sour cream (used yoghurt instead)

For the glaze:
4 tsp lemon juice (one lemon is enough)
2 tsp honey
100 g icing sugar

Heat the oven to 325F / 163C. Grease a 9-inch cake tin, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter and flour the base paper. Cream the butter, sugar, and honey together until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs lightly together and slowly incorporate into the butter mixture. Mix the dry ingredients together (all remaining ingredients but the sour cream / yoghurt) and stir well. Fold 1/3 of the flour mixture gently into the butter base, then about 1/3 of the yoghurt. Repeat twice more until all ingredients are just incorporated. Turn the batter into your prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for about 50 min, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Note that honey browns very quickly in the oven, so if you notice this happening, you can tent your cake with foil for the duration. When the cake is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for about ten min, then place on a rack to cool.

When cool, transfer to a plate and make the icing: whisk the lemon juice and honey together, then whisk in the icing sugar (ideally pre-sifted to remove lumps). Drizzle/spread over your cake, allowing the icing to trickle down the sides. Sprinkle with additional lavender flowers. Allow icing to set, and serve.

I thought the lavender might be a bit subtle, but it was a nice, moist cake. It went down pretty well (I think). The icing got good feedback too - it was thick and spreadable and maintained a good layer - it's perhaps a good idea to use for other cakes too!

Lavender cupcakes

In honour of our Grandma, Iz and I decided to make lavender cupcakes. She always loved flowers, and baking (especially for us). And we had access to plenty of lavender in the garden she and my uncle / her son S had nurtured together. So it seemed very fitting.

We made them in the kitchen at S's, which meant a few little screw ups due to unfamiliar equipment. But nothing that wasn't fixed by the time they were iced and decorated.

The recipe was from I's Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. It contains eggs and dairy (no one else eating them has vegan tendencies), but the key is the infusion of milk with lavender both for the cake and the icing, which could easily be done with non dairy milk and a vegan cupcake recipe.

(makes 9-12, depending how deep you fill the cups)

For the cake part:
120 ml milk
3 tbsp dried lavender flowers (we used fresh)
120 g plain flour
140 g sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
40 g butter, at room temperature
1 egg

For the icing:
25 ml milk
1 tbsp dried lavender flowers (we used fresh)
250 g icing sugar, sifted
80 g butter, at room temperature
A couple of drops of purple food colouring (optional)

For decoration:
~5 fresh, pretty lavender inflorescences

The day before, or at least several hours in advance, put the milk and lavender flowers in a jug, cover and refrigerate for a few hours, or overnight if possible. Do the same with the milk and lavender flowers for the icing, in a separate jug. We used fresh flowers and I crushed them a bit as I put them in the milk as we could only leave it to infuse for a few hours, and the flavour came out well.

When ready to bake the cakes, heat the oven to 170C/325F. Line a 12 cup tin with paper cases. Beat the flour, sugar, baking powder and butter together until they are well combined and a sandy consistency. Strain the lavender-infused milk (for the cake) and slowly pour into the flour mixture, beating well until all the ingredients are well mixed. Add the egg and beat well.

Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full (ours were not this full, even though we only did 9 not 12, but they did rise right to the tops of the cases - perhaps the recipe used smaller cups?) and bake for 20-25 min, or until the sponge bounces back when touched /a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, beat together the icing sugar, butter (and food colouring if using: we did not) until smooth and well mixed. Strain the lavender-infused milk and slowly pour into the butter mixture. Once it is mixed in, continue to beat until the icing is light and fluffy (at least five minutes), ideally with a food mixer or electric whisk.
When the cupcakes are cool, smooth the lavender frosting on top. Pick off the flowers from the lavender heads and sprinkle them over the tops of the cakes (think mine ended up with 8-10 flowers scattered over the top of each one).


They looked very pretty with the flowers on top and white icing. Both icing and cake were quite light and fluffy, and there was just the right amount of lavender flavour. It is reminiscent of lemon in its fragrant sharpness: I think it's lovely, although it is not necessarily for everyone.

Valentines Biscuits I: Lemon, lavender and semolina

I love this flavour combination, and these tasted great, but the texture is off: perhaps needed a bit more fat or a bit of lemon juice. This recipe needs some work - these ones were similar but better, although I do like the idea of including semolina.

3 oz plain flour
1 oz semolina
1 tsp lavender flowers, coarsely ground
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 oz sugar
small pinch salt
4 tbsp olive oil

Heat oven to 350F. Mix semolina, flour, lavender, lemon zest, salt and sugar in a bowl with a fork. Add olive oil and rub / mix until it comes together to make a dough. Shape into small, flattened discs and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for ~20 min.

Blueberry, lavender and corn muffins

For some reason I felt like doing something with blueberry and lavender.  Muffins are always the convenient option, as what we don't want to eat straight away can easily be stored in the freezer so we don't end up eating a crazy excess of cake all at once.  I based this on a recipe I'd used before, as I didn't feel like too big an experiment.  On reflection, I think they would have been better with oats instead of corn, next time...

1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 1/2 cups flour
pinch of salt
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp dried lavender flowers, pulsed in blender to break down a little
1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 cup veg oil
3/4 cup fake milk (used soy)
3/4 cup orange juice (used mixture orange, lemon and water)
1 tsp cider vinegar
1 cup blueberries

Oven to 400F.  Stir dry ingredients together.  Add wet ingredients and berries.  Mix til 'just mixed'.  Spoon into lightly oiled or lined muffin tins and bake for 30-40 min.  Test with a knife for readiness.


Initially I wasn't too keen on these - thought they were a bit stodgy - but I defrosted some to take along to a garden picnic and on a second taste they were actually pretty good - I think I might have been a bit off-colour when I first tried them.  The citrus and lavender notes are quite mysterious - they taste good but it's not easy to guess where the flavours are coming from.  They all got eaten and there were definite seconds so yeah, I guess they worked.

Potato, leek and lavender soup

Another New Covent Garden Soup Company old favourite.  I hadn't had any cookable lavender for a while, so hadn't made it for a while, but now I have lavender and now I have made the soup again.

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
2 large leeks, washed and finely chopped
1 1/2 lb potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1.5 l / 2.5 pints veg stock
425 ml / 3/4 pint fake milk
flowers of 3 lavender heads
salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, cover and cook gently for ~5 min til softened.  Add the potatoes, stock, milk and lavender.  Cover, bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 20-25 min until the potatoes are tender.  Cool a bit, then puree in a blender til smooth.  Season to taste and thin with water if necessary.


It's subtle but tasty.  Blended potato does make for a really nice smooth consistency (good for ill 'uns, like S this weekend).  I made the mistake of chucking some beetroot in my last batch of stock, so the colour of this was a little odd, just a little - browner than one might expect...

Sweet lemon / lavender / olive oil biscuits

flower biscuits!

I went a bit nuts and bought lots of dried flowers.  I wanted to mix my own tea blend (rose petals, green tea, cacao nibs and calendula petals, for the record - the rose/green tea/cacao combo is a winner in my book).  While shopping for dried rose petals, dried lavender flowers popped up too and I remembered about Lizzie and my triumphant lemon lavender cake and decided I needed some of those...  When they arrived (from Etsy), I discovered the vendor had thrown in some calendula, and also that I'm only ever going to be using a wee measure of flowers at once.  So yeah, now I have loads of flowers for cooking and tea-making.  Can't complain...

Somehow olive oil, lemon and lavender seemed like a perfect combination when I thought of it this morning - perhaps to do with memories of the Mediterranean?

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp dried lavender flowers
juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1-2 tbsp fake milk

Heat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.  Mix flour, sugar, bicarb and salt in a medium bowl with a fork.  Blitz lavender flowers in grinder so that they are broken up but not powdered, then stir them in with the flour.

Mix the lemon juice and zest with the olive oil, then add to dry ingredients and mix to a smooth dough.  Add fake milk as needed to get the required consistency.

Take lumps of the mixture and shape into ~1.5in diameter balls.  Flatten slightly and place on baking sheet, leaving 1-2in between blobs as they will spread a little while cooking.  Bake for 20-30 min, until slightly browned around the edges.  Take out, cool for ~5min on the sheet, then move to a cooling rack.


These came out good.  Very crunchy, but I think I liked that.  The lavender / lemon was fairly well balanced and nicely resonant.