Garden Lavender Pound Cake

I'll start off by being fair.

I've made this recipe before.

But it was so good the first time, and my friends have been wanting me to make it again, so I caved and made it as dessert for dinner Tuesday night.

Let me begin with a story about my fascination with lavender sugar.

I was at Findley Market a couple of years ago with my mom and My Brother the Chef. I think Mom was buying cheese or pork, so My Brother the Chef and I wandered down the aisle. He stopped in front of Colonel De Gourmet Herbs and Spices, with all their glass jars filled with intriguing lookingt flavors. I was drawn to the lavender sugar. I don't particularly know why; I knew I liked the smell of lavender, but didn't have a habit of eating flowers. I was going to buy some when my brother the chef said, "Oh, no, don't waste your money on that. You can make lavender sugar really easily." How?, I asked. "Stick some of Mom's dried lavender plant in a container of sugar." That's it? That was it.

What it should look like

A few months later I found this recipe in Mom's stack of recipes to be sorted and I knew I needed to make it. Luckily, the recipe also gave me directions on how to make lavender sugar. It called for stripping the blossoms and pulsing them with sugar in a food processor.

So what did I do?

I followed both instructions by pulsing sugar with just blossoms in the food processor, and then took a couple of whole stems and put them in a plastic, air-tight container with the sugar I had pulsed.

Layers of flavor, as some professionals like to say.

Anyway. When I made the recipe this time, instead of two loaf pans, I made one loaf pan and one muffin tin. Mostly because I only own one loaf pan, but also because the muffin size would be easy to bring to work. Because I really don't need to eat all this pound caek by myself.

I also didn't measure either the lemon zet for the cake or the lemon juice for the glaze. I just zested and juiced one lemon. That's what I had on hand.

My loaf. I seriously don't know how they make their glaze so opaque.

The first time I made this, I followed the directions and put the cakes on a wire rack to cool, then glazed them there. And this made a huge mess all over the counter. I don't have a lot of counter space in my apartment's tiny kitchen, so I just left everything in the pan and glazed it once they were cool. Turns out, then the glaze acts as glue to keep your cakes stuck in the pan.

At least it was a weak glue. And a tasty one, too.

Overall, the pound cake didn't turn out bad. The muffins were a little dry. I did put them in for 30 minutes as opposed to 45 for the loaf, but it probably should have been shorter. The loaf was more moist, but probably also could have used less time. I put that in for 45 minutes and the toothpick didn't pull out clean so I put it back in, turned off the oven and let it go for a bit. I don't know how long, but evidently too long.

And the muffins. I had trouble removing them.

I wish the lavender flavor had been more intense. You really couldn't taste it unless you bit a blossom. So next time, instead of half lavender sugar and half regular, I'll make it all lavender sugar.

Conclusion: More lavender, less time.