Lavender Honey Cake with Lemon & Honey Cream Cheese Icing
A beautifully textured cake with lavender tones, honey notes and a scent of lemon. A fresh spring or summer sponge that can be decorated with whatever edible flowers are in season. This lavender honey cake makes an ideal Mother’s Day cake too.
Mother’s Day Cake
Mother’s Day is fast approaching and I can’t help but think of cake. I feel something light and spring like is needed.
I’ve been seeing a lot of honey cakes over the web recently and it’s given me a yen for making one. There’s something so delicious in the word honey cake; it conjures up many good things and I wanted a piece of the action.
I know, how about a lavender honey cake scented with lemon and smothered in honey cream cheese icing? Sorted.
I was keen for my cake to be light and spring like as befits a March Mothering Sunday. It needed something floral: lavender I thought. Most years, I collect a few lavender buds from my garden for culinary purposes – you just never know when you might need some. I checked the cupboard, and yes, I still had plenty in the jar.
Cornish Heather Honey
To echo the floral notes of lavender I decided to open a treasured jar of Cornish heather honey. The best honey in Cornwall comes from the Lizard where Cornish heather flourishes and the bees fly low. It’s really quite distinctive and you don’t need a lot for the flavour to permeate a cake.
As I look out of my window at a brightly hued double rainbow, which has emerged after the latest downpour, I feel the promise of balmy summer days spent strolling around Britain’s most southerly Peninsula.
Lavender Honey Cake
Back to my lavender honey cake. All I needed was some zesty lemon to lift it and a light but delicious icing to fill and top it. The result was everything I was hoping for, apart from a little charring around the edges. Ahem!
The sponge is light and not too sweet. It has subtle tones of lavender, notes of honey and a scent of lemon. The lemon and honey cream cheese icing is so delicious it nearly didn’t make it to the cake at all. Again, it’s not overly sweet and it complements the cake beautifully.
If you’re wondering what cake to make for your mother on Sunday or even if you should bake one at all, I urge you to give this one a go. And if you have a jar of lavender honey lying around, so much the better.
Lavender Flowers
Use lavender with caution. Too much and your cake or other baked goods can taste soapy and overpowering.
Other Mother’s Day Cake Recipes You Might Like
- Chocolate coconut cannellini cake via Tin and Thyme
- Chocolate violet fancies via Lavender and Lovage
- Clementine cake via Kavey Eats
- Lavender chocolate goose egg cake via Tin and Thyme
- Lemon drizzle layer cake via Baking Queen
- Marmalade runeberg cakes via Tin and Thyme
- Mini chocolate and orange marble bundt cakes via Belleau Kitchen
- Mini lemon drizzle pound cakes via Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this lavender honey cake with lemon and honey cream cheese icing, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?
If you’d like more honey recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.
Choclette x
Lavender Honey Cake. PIN IT.
Lavender Honey Cake with Lemon and Honey Cream Cheese Icing
Equipment
- air fryer (affiliate link) optional
Ingredients
Lavender Honey Cake
- 100 g golden caster sugar or golden granulated
- 1 tsp lavender buds
- 100 g unsalted butter softened
- 1 tbsp honey well flavoured floral honey is best
- ½ lemon
- 2 medium eggs
- 150 g spelt flour half white, half wholemeal
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp natural yoghurt
- 2 tbsp water
Honey Cream Cheese Icing
- 125 ml double cream (heavy cream)
- ½ lemon
- 75 g full fat cream cheese
- 1 tsp honey well flavoured floral honey is best
- 40 g icing sugar
Instructions
Lavender Honey Cake
- Blitz the sugar and lavender together in a power blender or coffee grinder. Or grind in a pestle and mortar.100 g golden caster sugar, 1 tsp lavender buds
- Cream the sugar, honey and butter together until light and creamy.100 g unsalted butter, 1 tbsp honey
- Grate in the lemon zest and cream a bit more.½ lemon
- Beat in the eggs one by one.2 medium eggs
- Sieve in half the flour with the baking powder and stir. Add the yoghurt and water and stir until just combined. Sieve in the remaining flour and stir in along with a squeeze of lemon juice until just combined.150 g spelt flour, 1 ½ tsp baking powder, 2 tbsp natural yoghurt, 2 tbsp water
- Spoon the mixture into a 15 cm / 6″ greased and lined deep round tin.
- Bake in a pre-warmed oven at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for about 35 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out more or less clean. I used my Optimum HealthyFry air fryer.
- Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Honey Cream Cheese Icing
- Whip the cream in a bowl until just holding its shape.125 ml double cream (heavy cream)
- Grate the lemon zest and add to the bowl.½ lemon
- Add the cream cheese, honey, icing sugar and a squeeze of lemon. Whip again until everything is well mixed and holds its shape.75 g full fat cream cheese, 1 tsp honey, 40 g icing sugar
- Cut the cooled cake in half and spread half of the mixture over one half. Cover with the other half and spread the remaining mixture over the top.
- Decorate with seasonal edible flowers or sugar flowers.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Linkies
I’m linking my lavender honey cake up to Cook Blog Share at Easy Peasy Foodie this week.
So, I’m guessing that to make a two-layered cake like the one pictured in all of your photos, you’d have to double this recipe? The rest of the recipe was easy to follow, I just wish it mentioned that you would not get the cake pictured by following the recipe, or I would have purchased more ingredients.
Hi Toby – there should have been enough ingredients for a two layered cake if you used the tin size I stated in the recipe. It’s a small cake and needs to be baked in a 15cm (6″) deep round tin. When it’s cooked and cooled, you then cut it in half to create two layers. If you want to make a larger cake, then yes, you’d need to double the recipe.
I’m baking this now. Do you store in refrigerator?
Hi Chelsea. Personally, I don’t store cakes in the refrigerator as I think it makes them go a bit tough and they don’t taste as nice cold. This will keep in an air tight container for 2-3 days. But because of the cream cheese frosting, you might want to keep it in the fridge if you’re keeping it for longer than a couple of days.
I just love using my HealthyFry for baking, it’s so convenient.
Me too, though I’ve been without one for a couple of months. Must get on to sorting it out.
How incredible that you made it in the HealthyFry! I love the flavours in this cake. So perfect for Mother’s Day and any other day 🙂
Thanks Kate. It’s not the most obvious thing to me making in an air fryer for sure, but it works brilliantly.
Just the name of this cake makes me think of spring days and sunny skies – so evocative!
Aw thanks Cathy. That was the general idea 😀
What a beautiful cake Choclette. I love honey in a cake and I bet it’s delicious with the lavender.
Thanks Sarah. Honey gives such a good flavour to baking, I really should use it more often.
Yes please! This is so my kind of cake. I love honey cakes and all things flavoured with lavender! Such pretty decoration too 🙂 Thanks for mentioning my cake and thanks for linking up with #CookBlogShare 🙂 Eb x
Thanks Eb. Fresh flowers are such an easy but effective way to decorate a cake – as long as there are flowers to be had of course 🙂
Beautiful cake and perfect for Mothers Day. Lavender and Honey sounds an amazing combination and sure confirmation that warmer weather is on its way xx
Thanks Kate. This is the first time I’ve tried lavender and honey together (I think) and it turns out it’s a lovely mix. Yay, spring is most definitely here. These last few days I’ve even been complaining that I’m too hot – shhh!
Oh my, this cake sounds amazing. I love adding lavender to bakes. Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
Thanks Kirsty. Less is more with lavender I reckon, but get it right and it works wonderfully in baking.
What beautiful photos – I would love a slice or even to be able to make impressive layer cakes like that.
Aw thanks Johanna. Of course you can make layer cakes, you’re far more adept at cake decoration than me.
This is perfect for Mother’s Day! Love the flower decoration – hello Spring!
Thanks for sharing!
Leigh at Fashion Du Jour LDN x
Mother’s Day is the perfect opportunity to welcome in the spring 🙂
I do like the sound of cooking with lavender and it seems the perfect flavouring for Mother’s Day.
Thanks Erica. It can be tricky getting it right with lavender. Too much and everything tastes soapy! Luckily I think I got it right 🙂
Oh this cake looks absolutely delicious and so pretty.
Thanks very much Jacqui. Flowers are wonderful things 🙂
What a beautiful cake .It sounds delicious too. Quintessentially English x
Thanks Jenny. Yes exactly, that’s why I thought it would be a good cake for Mother’s Day 🙂
What a beautiful cake! It sounds just perfect for mothers day but what I really like the sound of is that gorgeous icing on the top!
That gorgeous icing really is “the icing on the cake” 🙂
This really does sounds like a wonderful cake perfect to celebrate Mother’s Day with!
Thanks Sus. If only my mother had been lucky enough to get any 😉
Oh great minds think alike! I have a mother’s day cake topped with primroses which is popping up on TS on Sunday, they are so pretty aren’t they?! Lavender and honey are a marriage made in heaven, this sounds divine!
Primroses come out at just the right time in order to grace Mother’s Day I reckon. Look forward to seeing your cake.
Lavander cake sounds subliminal Choclette! And it’s also super pretty, I bet it would make any mum happy 🙂
Thanks Andrea. It’s a lush cake and if only my mum had got a look in, I think she would very much have liked it 😉
That looks so springy and beautiful! I love the simple yet chic deco of this layered cake. Well done, Choclette.
Aw thanks Angie. I love it when my cake are called chic 🙂