Lavender Honey Cake
This Lavender Honey Cake is a perfect summer dessert. The vanilla cake base is tender, with the subtle and delicious flavours of lavender and honey.
On our recent trip to Tofino, BC, based on a recommendation from my friend Julie, we visited a chocolate and ice cream shop called Chocolate Tofino. Honestly, I have never had a better ice cream cone in all of my life…I tried their Double Chocolate cone and a Sweet Cream and Dark Chocolate Chunk cone and I still can’t stop thinking about them. I also taste tested one of their unique flavours called Lavender & Honey, which I thought was so delicious and interesting and it immediately made me think of cake. Because I’m always always thinking of cake. But seriously, think about how scrumptious a Lavender and Honey Cake would be…warm vanilla cake with soft flavours of lavender and honey…not too much, just enough to lightly taste them.
Lavender is lovely in desserts!
To get the beautiful lavender flavour into the ice cream, the shop steeps fresh lavender flowers in cold cream, so that is what I tried when making this cake. Luckily I have a beautiful pot of lavender growing in my garden so I was able to clip some fresh flowers for my cake. I really love lavender and grow it every year, but admittedly I never harvest the flowers, which I have vowed to do from now on. In fact I hope to grow many many more lavender plants and eventually dry the flowers to use in recipes, teas and other things…but for now I make cake! So I clipped a fresh bunch and got them ready to be turned into cake…lavender is delicious in sweets.
Steep Fresh Lavender in Cold Cream
At first I just put the stems upside down right into the cream, but then I decided to remove the lavender flowers from the stems and chop them up into small pieces to release the lavender flavour. I also wanted small pieces of lavender scattered throughout my baked cake. Then I placed the jar into the fridge to rest overnight.
The result was a delicious and light lavender flavoured cream, ready to be turned into cake! I bet this cream would be delicious in tea too…oh well for another day I guess!
Vanilla Cake is perfect for the addition of Lavender
For the cake base I used my go-to vanilla Bundt cake recipe that I use for almost all of my flavoured cakes, like Strawberry Rhubarb, Earl Grey, and Peach, it’s such a great base. The cake is tender, but the best part is that I get to use my Bundt pans…I LOVE my Bundt pans and will bake with them any chance I get. This particular pan is the Nordic Ware Heritage Formed Bundt Pan (affiliate link) and it’s one of my favourites because the soft edging always releases the cakes so nicely.
I really love how this cake turned out. Not only does it look beautiful, but it’s sweet, tender and perfectly lightly lavender flavoured…it is a delicious summer dessert.
And I love all the little lavender flower flecks scattered throughout the cake…I wasn’t sure how I would like that, but they’re perfect. Here’s the recipe for you, I hope you enjoy it!
Lavender Honey Cake
Please note, you will need to steep the fresh lavender flowers in cold cream overnight in the fridge before making this cake!
- Cook Time: 60 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 1 cake 1x
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 cup plain yogurt
- 1/4 cup cream (like half & half)
- 1 small bunch of fresh lavender flowers (remove the flowers from the stems, about 15-20)
- icing sugar for garnish
Instructions
Steeping the lavender flowers:
- Remove the lavender flowers from the stems and chop them up into small pieces. Put the chopped flowers into 1/4 cup of cream, then place in the fridge to rest overnight.
Making the cake:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Prepare your Bundt pan by spraying the inside of the pan with a baking spray containing flour (you can find this spray in the baking aisle at your grocery store). This step is so important if you want your cake to slide out of the pan. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, honey and sugar.
- Add the eggs, one at a time.
- Then add vanilla, and mix well.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, and baking powder.
- Remove the lavender flowers from the cream, then mix the cream with the yogurt.
- Chop up the purple flowers to add to the batter (not the stems!).
- To the butter mix, add 1/3 of the flour mix, then 1/2 of the cream/yogurt mix. Repeat until all combined.
- Stir in the chopped lavender flowers.
- Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Once the cake has baked, let it cool for about 10 minutes in the pan, then turn the cake out onto a plate, and sprinkle with icing sugar.
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For more delicious Bundt Cake recipes, visit my Bundt Cake Gallery here!
Have a delicious day!
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Your Lavender Honey cake sounds amazing, can’t wait to try it out! How much honey do you add to the recipe and when do you add it in (I couldn’t seem to find it on the recipe you posted).
Thanks!
Haha I can’t believe I left it out!! I’ve updated the recipe now! Thank you Nadine!
I’ve never tried anything with lavender (besides tea), but this looks amazing!
So happy to see you back! I’ve missed your posts. 🙂
Thank you Melissa! It feels good to be back!
YUM! When are you having us all over for lavender and honey cake? 😉
Come on over! 😉
This looks absolutely amazing!!!
Thank you Kristi!
This looks amazing!! How would I adjust this for dried baking lavender?
Thank you and can’t wait to try this!
I would love to know if this is an option as well. I’m sad there was no response
Sorry you are sad! 🙂 I haven’t tried it with dried lavender so I’m not sure. I would definitely try it though…I would start off with the same amount I would use to make tea, so about 1 tbsp of dried lavender and steep it in the milk. From there, after some time (maybe 10-15 minutes), just taste it and if you wish, add more if it needs to be stronger.
Hi Jo-Anna, this cake sounds delicious! Do you think I could substitute more honey for half of the sugar , and would this recipe work with mini bundt pans ?
Hi Orly! I’m not sure about substituting more honey…I’ve never tried it that way, and I would be a bit concerned that it might make the cake too sticky and may not rise properly. I do think it would work with mini bundt pans, you would just have to reduce the baking time to be consistent with other cakes you may have made in the small pans.
The cake turned out delicious! I followed all your instructions but used 2 t. dried lavender and I thought it tasted like the right amount. Instead of a bundt pan, I used two round cake pans, and sprinkled a few dried lavender on my frosting. If I had to do it again, I’d probably add blueberries (or make them into preserves) between the top & bottom layer.
This was amazing, it tasted lovely and soft and would 11/10 make it again. I used dried lavender (roughly the same amount as recipe) and added some homemade lavender extract since I wasn’t able to wait overnight and it turned out beautifully. Was a huge crowd pleaser at the event I was at.