In the last minutes of the TGRWT #6 I decided to make a simple apple cake and add some lavender. The cake was nice, but I could clearly have used much more lavender. This makes me curious about what experiences the rest of you have made combining apple and lavender.
Apple cake (with too little lavender)
100 g butter
170 g sugar
rind of 1/2 lemon
4 eggs (~210 g)
275 g flour
1 t baking powder
1 dL milk (or cream)
ca. 20 lavender leaves
3-4 apples, thinly sliced
3-4 t sugar
Mix butter and sugar. Add eggs and lemon rind. Mix flour and baking powder and add to the rest. Stir in milk and add lavender. I used leaves for the batter and ca. 15 to decorate the top. Pour batter into greased pan. Insert apple slices. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 175 °C for 45-55 min until golden. Cool. Serve with whipped cream.
Martin this still looks delicious, perhaps serve it with a chantilly cream whipped with lavender infused syrup?
I’ve messed around with som ideas for apple/lavendel. I’ve tried one appelcake, just a standard recipie but switched the cinnamon for lavendel. And a simple applecompott, just sliced apple, sugar, butter and lavendel. Two appels 2-3 tablespoons of lavendel…
The thing is I belive 175 degrees is to hot for the lavendel. You don’t brew your herbal tea at those temperatures… A long simmer on a low heat in my applecompott brought out a much more distinct flavor of lavendel.
Any other ideas?
I found a few recipes using lavender and the quantities of dried lavender flower buds used varied between two teaspoon to two tablespoon per kilo of ingredients. I found that it is very easy to add too much lavender. It doesn’t taste bad, but I get the feeling there is soap in the dish.
I agree with Magnus, simmering in hot water seems important.
african vanielje: yes – that would be a good idea, especially since it would allow you to add lavender to taste (which is possible with the cake batter to, but perhaps not as desireable)
Magnus: I agree that 175 °C is too hot, but the lavender inside the cake is always < 100 °C due to the continous evaporation of water. The lavender used for decoration on the surface however is a different story. papin: that's exactly what I was afraid of - the soapy feeling...
Yes, didn’t mean that the temp was 175 °C in the cake, but it’s got to be a little hotter than 100 °C anyway, doesn’t? If you have butter and water in an emulsion the temp goes up. but still, won’t do such a difference in temp, but still…
I’ve tried do simmer the apple/lavendel on the lowest setting on my stove with the lid on until it was a nice jell. Much more lavendelflavour, but the apples tasted more like fresh then baked. I’m thinking about doing a “half&half” cake with half baked appels in sugar and butter and half with my slow compott. What do you think, can it work?