The famous lavender cake recipe!

This is the cake that I have the most requests for. It's not actually my recipe - I found it on Allrecipes (fantastic site by the way, with a very useful ingredient search function), submitted by Judi. It's technically a tea bread, but it's so like a cake I just call it a cake! Besides, few people know what a tea bread actually is, and assume it's something you'd make a cheese sandwich with.

180 ml milk
3 tbs finely chopped fresh lavender leaves (it looks like a LOT of lavender but the flavour is fantastic)
85 g butter or margarine, softened
200 g white sugar
2 eggs
250 g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt

1) Preheat the oven to 165C/325F. Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2) Combine the milk and lavender in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat to a simmer, then remove from heat, and allow to cool slightly.
3) Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg until the mixture is light and fluffy.
4) Combine the flour and salt; stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk and lavender until just blended. Pour into the prepared pan.
5) Bake for 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a skewer inserted into the crown of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

If I make this for myself I don't bother to ice it because it's already quite moist and sweet, but if I make it for a special occasion I'll add some kind of topping. I never seem to make the same one twice! This one works very well.

Mix 100g of cream cheese in a bowl until smooth. Add 50g of softened butter and 1tsp of vanilla extract and blend well. Pass 3tbs of strawberry or raspberry jam through a sieve into the mixture and stir in. Sweeten to taste with icing sugar or granulated sweetener (I prefer Splenda). The icing will be on the runny side - just spread it out on the top of the cake and let it drizzle down over the sides. Tell yourself it looks rustic. ;)

Prepare for some funny looks when you tell people it's lavender cake. Until they taste it, that is. I've never known anyone taste it and say they didn't like it. Seriously.

Actually I'm completely in love with lavender. It looks great, smells gorgeous and tastes fantastic. I love it in cakes, biscuits/cookies, scones, as a jelly, and strangely enough, with chicken (I'll post my very simple lavender chicken recipe soon). I don't understand why my mum hates lavender, it actually makes her feel sick. Bizarre.