Chocolate Lavender Cake

To make this recipe vegan and dairy-free, we have opted for soy instead of classic yogurt. But if you aren't allergic to dairy or prefer to eat dairy over plant-based products, we suggest you use greek yogurt instead.

Greek yogurt is a rich source of proteins and calcium, making it an enriching choice for this recipe. Moreover, this type of yogurt is denser than other yogurts, helping to make the chocolate cake dough moist and creamy.

We recommend you choose plain unsweetened Greek yogurt that is full fat or low-fat. Avoid going for fat-free versions which usually are more processed and don't work as well in baked goods.

Yes, you can. We like using lavender flowers as they are more versatile and less refined than lavender essence. But if you don't have the florets at hand, we will tell you how to make our lavender cake recipe above using lavender essence. 

In truth, there is one advantage in using the culinary lavender essence or oil instead of the flowers. With the liquid form, you won't have to worry about turning the flowers into tea first. So you will save some time. 

But lavender essence is much more potent than the florets, and you cannot replace the two ingredients by equal volume or weight. 

The ratio of lavender flowers to essence is 1 tbsp to 3 drops. One tablespoon of lavender flowers weighs around three grams, so if a recipe uses three grams of flowers, you can use three drops of essence instead. 

In our cake above, we used lavender flowers both in the dough and in the filling. Here is how to modify the recipe to use lavender essence in two simple steps:

1. In step one, make the lavender tea using three drops of essence instead of one tablespoon of flowers.

2. Follow the rest of the recipe as is. 

We said it was simple right? 

In case you didn't know, lavender essence contains alcohol. If your diet or religion discourages the consumption of alcohol, then we suggest you use lavender flowers and follow our recipe above.

Our chocolate lavender recipe is gluten-free because we have used oat flour instead of wheat flour.

If you have never baked gluten-free and vegan cakes before, and are used to using plain wheat and butter, you should know the results won't be the same. Vegan and gluten-free cakes are way more wholesome, but also crumblier. The lack of gluten and fats makes it harder for the dough to stick together. If your cake comes out too brittle, eat it with a fork! It's a small price to pay for a much healthier bake, in our opinion.

Oatmeal is rich in fibres, proteins and minerals, and is one of our favourite gluten-free flours. They are a nourishing addition to any diet.

There are other flours you can use instead of oatmeal, like almond flour, coconut flour, or a mix of rice flour and buckwheat flour. But we chose oat flour for our lavender cake because we didn't want to have other flavours diminishing the floral taste of lavender. Chocolate is already overwhelming enough, so having added coconut or almond taste was not ideal for this recipe.

But if you want to use other flours, take a look at our gluten-free matcha cake, where we used a mix of almond and rice flour. When following the steps to make the dough there, you can replace almond flour with coconut flour with a 1:1 ratio, if you like coconut.

If you made too much of this cake and are afraid of it going to waste, then you can freeze it. You could also store it in the fridge for up to 3 days.

If you opt for the freezer, we will give you a few tips below on how to do it well.

The ingredients we used in our chocolate lavender cake recipe are quite low-fat. As such, the water content in the dough will freeze the cake hard. Therefore, the cake will take a bit longer to thaw compared to fattier bakes.

Before freezing the cake, cut any leftover into single portions. Then, store every single serving into a separate zip-tight bag, or box. If you don't have enough containers, try to keep the slices from touching. This way, the single portions will not stick to one another.

That's it! As we approach summer, you can serve a slice of a cake with a scoop of your favourite ice cream.