Lavender and lemon pound cake

I am having a bit of a weird obsession these days. I have this compulsion to cook with (and eat) everything lavender. I made a honey/lavender ice cream a while back which came out great and I brought home an amazing lavender salami from a recent visit to Amsterdam which was also so, so delicious. Well, today is an extremely grey day here in Copenhagen, and I felt the need to spice it up with some cake baking, and eating. I settled on this lemon/lavender pound cake, and it came out perfect! It is moist, perfumy from the lavender and deliciously lemony. I found the recipe here, and adapted it to fit my temper.

For one beautiful cake you need

For the batter

190 grams soft butter

3/4 cups sugar

1/6 cup milk

3 eggs

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla (essence, vanilla sugar or the seeds of a pod)

1,5 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/6 cup dried lavender flowers

For the frosting

Juice and zest of half a lemon

70 grams powdered sugar

Start by turning the oven to 175C/350F. Beat the soft butter with the sugar until creamy. Add all the dry ingredients except the lavender and mix until combined. In another bowl mix the wet ingredients. With an electric mixer (or in a stand mixer) mix in 1/3 of the milk/egg mixture to the  butter/sugar/flour mix. Mix for 1 minute, then add another third of the liquid to the mix. Again beat for a minute until adding the rest of the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl. Beat it all for another minute until it is a beautiful batter. Mix in the lavender. Butter a round cake pan (or loaf pan if you like) and add the batter to it.

Bake it for about 35 minutes, or until a pin comes out clean. Let it cool completely. Then mix the lemon juice, zest and powdered sugar to make the glaze. Dress the cake with the lemony frosting and sprinkle some lavender flowers over the cake to make it pretty. Let the frosting dry, and enjoy!

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