lemon & lavender drizzle cake | a recipe

You'll have to forgive me. Ever since I found a place which sells lavender and rose and whatever else, I have become obsessed with finding recipes which use all of the edible flowers and my blog is soon to be groaning under the weight of them all, not to mention the baking box where I keep all of my baking junk, which is balanced on top of the fridge with the alcohol. It's piled so high that one day I will come home from work to find angry housemates, smashed bottles of gin and I'll wonder why I didn't just go to Ikea for storage sooner...

And so we come to this lemon and lavender drizzle cake. And I know, drizzle cake is hardly about to set the cake world on fire, but they are so easy to make and lemon drizzle is such a classic - and hey, classics are classics for a reason. Plus this cake comes with one massive benefit, which is that when you make the crystallised lemon slices, the lemony sugar syrup which is left over is perfect for making a Bramble cocktail. So cake and cocktails? Win win really. 

Let's just ignore the fact that this looks off centre and the icing went a little wrong. It wouldn't be a cake I'd made if something hadn't gone wrong with it...

Ingredients:

Cake:

225g butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
225g self-raising flour
1 teapsoon of lavender

Drizzle:

Juice 1½ lemons
85g caster sugar

Icing:

Icing sugar
2 teaspoons of lavender

Candied lemon:

3 slices of lemon
150g caster sugar
170ml water

Method:

Cake:

Heat oven to 180C.
Beat together 225g butter and 225g caster sugar until pale and creamy.
Add 4 eggs slowly, bit by bit
Sift in 225g flour
Add grated zest of 1 lemon
In a pesltle and mortar, crush the lavendar and add to the mix
Mix well until combined
Line a loaf tin then spoon in the mixture and level the top
Bake for 45-50 mins

Drizzle:
While the cake is cooling in its tin, mix together the juice of 1 1/2 lemons and 85g caster sugar to make the drizzle
Prick the warm cake all over then pour over the drizzle
Leave in the tin until completely cool

Icing:

Mix icing sugar and water to desired thickness and slather over
Decorate with lavender

Candied lemon:

Combine the water with the sugar in a saucepan
Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 5 minutes
Add the lemon slices and simmer for another 5 minutes
When the slices have become transparentish, remove the slices
Dry on grease-proof paper
Place on top of cake