Lavender Infused Lightning Cake With Lemon Lavender Glaze

Our good friend and neighbor Olivia showed up at my door with a gift of some culinary lavender. (She’s always kind like that!) So of course I set out to find a recipe I could make to use some of those beautiful flower buds.  I laughed out loud when I found this “Lighting” cake recipe in an old cookbook. (I’m sure they meant “Lightning” Cake since I found other old Lightning Cake recipes online.) 

The directions said to “melt a piece of butter the size of an egg.” Oh BOY! This sounded like my kind of baking! (I hate to measure…which probably explains why I would much rather cook than bake.)

Here are the simple ingredients for that old fashioned Lightning Cake…but I added a newfangled lavender twist!

Now…about that butter the size of an egg. How big were eggs in those olden days? Who knows?

So I used about 1/4 cup.

I stuck the butter in a cup and melted it in the microwave while I prepared the sugar and lavender mixture. I decided the best way to incorporate the lavender into the sugar was to give it a whirl in my food processor. (I used about one teaspoon to flavor the sugar.) I pulsed until the flower beds were finely chopped.

Then I followed the old fashioned recipe. It said to “have ready in a mixing bowl” all of the dry ingredients so I guess that’s the lightning part of the name. And actually this cake does come together at lightning speed.

I combined the lavender infused sugar with the flour.

I added the baking powder and I mixed those dry ingredients together well.

Next I beat two eggs together in a one cup measure. (The recipe just said to use a cup…NOT a measuring cup!) 

I slowly added the cooled, melted butter to the eggs. Don’t add HOT butter to eggs or you’ll have a scramble on your hands!

Then I added some real vanilla extract.

And I filled the cup to the one cup mark with milk. (When I was a child I remember watching my Amish neighbor make cinnamon rolls. She used a coffee cup instead of a measuring cup to measure her ingredients too.)

Next I combined the wet and dry ingredients and I stirred the batter with a rubber spatula just until combined.

The recipe said to pour the mixture in to two layer pans, but I couldn’t imagine only 1 1/4 cups of flour making enough batter to make two layers of a cake! So I pulled out my 9 1/2 inch tart pan. I sprayed it liberally with cooking spray before pouring the batter into that prepared pan.

I baked the cake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center came out clean.

I let the cake cool for a few minutes before I removed it from the tart pan.

I decided to add another layer of flavor by creating a lemon and lavender glaze, so I pulverized a small amount of lavender buds with my mortar and pestle.

Then I added the zest of one lemon to the bowl.

I also added the juice of that same lemon.

Then I added a pinch of salt, and I whisked in enough powdered sugar to make a glaze of the proper consistency.

I poured the glaze over the cooled cake.

I’d say it was a successful experiment.

In fact I felt I deserved a little reward for creating this dessert. So I arranged my very own afternoon tea party…just for me. I even got out one of Mom’s treasured bone china tea cups and I brewed myself some Earl Grey to go with that cake. And that turned out to be a match made in heaven!

It’s moments like these that fill my days with joy.

And I can’t wait to share a piece of this cake with Olivia…my dear gift-giving, lavender-loving neighbor!