Ingredients
Organic Lavender Milk (this will last as long as the date on the milk bottle)
1 litre Organic Blue Top Milk
4 Tbsp Culinary Lavender
Add together in a sauce pan bring to a slight boil turn heat off and steep overnight.
Cake
410g Unsalted Butter
2 3/4 cups Castor Sugar
6 Free Range Eggs
4 1/2 cups Bakers Flour
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
400mls Organic Milk
4 Tbsp Organic Earl Grey Tea
1 Tbsp Culinary Lavender Icing
Lavender Buttercream
6 cups Icing Sugar
1 cup Unsalted Butter
6 Tbsp Organic Lavender Milk
1 tsp Organic Dried Lavender
Natural purple food colouring (I used a few frozen bluberries & boysenberries defrosed then stick blended until slight paste forms pass through a fine sieve. Add a tsp at a time until desired colour forms)
Method
Pre-heat oven 180˚c
In a motar & pestle add all of the earl grey tea and finely grind. (I then pass it through a sieve to get any stalks out)
In a small sauce pan add 3 Tbsp of the ground earl grey to 400mls of the Lavender milk. Bring to a soft boil, remove from heat and let it steep until needed.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add one egg at a time. In a seperate bowl combine flour, baking powder, the additional ground earl grey and salt. Fold together. Add half of the dry ingredients slowly to the egg mix, gradually add the milk mix and then the remaining dry mix until just combined.
I divided the cake mix into three 24cm cake tins (approx 3 cups of the mix into each tin). Bake in the middle of the oven for 40 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. I rotated the cakes around at 20mins to ensure even cooking. Allow cakes to fully cool before icing.
Icing
In a cake mixer cream the butter until pale and fluffy, add icing sugar one cup at a time. Add half the milk, the lavender and colouring. If the icing is looking dry add the remaining milk. Mix well.
Add some of the buttercream between each layer of the cake assemble into a tower of three, you can pipe the remaining butter cream onto the cake or using a palet knife smooth it over.
Megan Pirret (Head Chef)