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Meyer Lemon Lavender Cake

A lemon and lavender cake with lemon syrup. When life gives you lemons...
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time50 minutes
Total Time1 hour 20 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: cake, dessert
Servings: 1 cake

Ingredients

For the cake:

  • 1.5 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 each eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup olive oil or a neutral oil
  • 2.5 tsp lemon zest
  • 2 tsp fresh lavender flowers optional

Lemon Glaze recipe

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 5 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp lemon zest
  • 1 tsp lavender flowers

Instructions

  • For the Cake
  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • Grease and flour an 8"-9" loaf pan.
  • Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
  • In a medium sized bowl whisk together the eggs, milk, oil, lemon zest and lavender.
    Add the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
  • Pour the batter into a greased and floured loaf pan. I used an 8.5# non-stick loaf pan and sprayed it with a little cooking oil spray and then dusted it with flour.
  • Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes, or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. The cake may cook faster if you use a larger or differently shaped loaf pan so start checking it after about 40 minutes.
  • Once the cake is done, remove it from the oven. Using a long wooden skewer, poke holes in the top of the cake, all the way to the bottom, about 1" apart. Do not remove from the pan. Follow the directions below for adding the glaze.
  • For the Lemon Glaze
  • Mix the sugar and the lemon juice and heat until the sugar dissolves into a syrup. Do not add the zest and lavender yet.
  • Pour 1/2 the glaze over the cake while it's still in the pan after you have poked holes in the top (as described above). Let the cake rest for 15 minutes and then remove the cake from the pan and set on a platter.
  • Mix the other half of the syrup with the lemon zest and lavender flowers, heat it in a small pot and let it reduce about 1-2 minutes. The goal is to slightly thicken the syrup but be careful not to let it burn.
  • Remove from the heat, wait about 15 seconds, and then pour the syrup with the zest and the flowers in it over the top of the cake and allow to cool.

Notes

You'll need about 3 lemons total for this zest and juice in this recipe (depending on how juicy the lemons are)
The recipe adapts well to substitutions:
  • Use olive or a neutral oil like safflower or canola.
  • Leave out the lavender if you want.
  • I've made this without the lavender and added a cup of fresh blueberries to the batter right before putting it into the pan. It was fantastic.