While this lemon lavender cake is moist as ever, if you’re looking for something airy, try this lemon lavender angel food cake.
What does lavender taste like?
Lavender has a delicate flavor. It’s described as floral and has earthy and woody undertones. Think rose mixed with rosemary – sweet and savory, but not bitter. In any case, you want to bake with it carefully. Too little and you won’t taste it, too much and you’ll cross over into soapy. It should be treated like a spice.
What type of lavender should I use for lemon lavender cake?
All lavender is edible, it’s an herb in the mint family. This recipe, however, calls for 1 tablespoon of dried culinary lavender. Using a culinary variety of lavender means you’ll be working with the lavender buds and not the leaves or stems. Not to get too technical, but you want to cook or bake with lavender that has low camphor in it (camphor makes some lavender taste bitter.) Lavender is a beautiful herb to bake with. If you like the smell of lavender, then you’ll probably enjoy the taste, too! In just 1 hour you’ll have yourself a gorgeous lavender lemon cake, sure to impress your friends and family – because really any time you bake with lavender it immediately jumps to gourmet! Here are the easy-to-follow steps to get there:
For the cake:
For the frosting:
For this lavender lemon cake recipe, we used lemon slices and lavender to decorate the cake, but there are lots of ways to add a little pizzazz. Here are some ideas:
Pretty lavender icing: The frosting on this cake is white, however, you can make it a delicate lavender color to match the flavors. You can add culinary lavender to the frosting to give it some lavender flavor, and/or you can add 2-4 drops of purple food coloring to the frosting to achieve the lavender color. Candied, fresh, or dried lemon slices: You can add lemon wheels in any variety to your cake. For this recipe, we used candied lemon slices. To do this, you will need to make a simple syrup (you can follow the linked recipe, however, omit the strawberry step). Once you have a simple syrup on the stovetop, simmer the lemons in the simple syrup for about 1 hour. Then set your oven to the lowest setting and bake them for 1-2 hours, flipping often so that they don’t burn or get too brown. Coconut: Coconut will complement the delicate flavors in this cake. You can add coconut flakes on top of the frosting to add some texture and a subtle coconut flavor. Extra lemon: This cake is wonderful served with lemon curd. You can also use lemon curd as a filling between the layers.
Did you make this?
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