This pretty Earl Grey and Lavender Cake is subtly flavoured with the complimentary floral flavours of culinary lavender and Earl Grey tea leaves. This is a soft, moist cake topped with a delicious lavender flavoured two-tone buttercream frosting. A beautiful cake to serve for afternoon tea.
You might well be sceptical about a cake flavoured with Earl Grey tea and lavender and assume the flavour will not be unlike potpourri. Quite honestly so was I as it does, after all, sound a little strange. However, my husband and I are life-long fans of Parma Violets (we like to feed our inner child) and I really wanted to create a cake with a similar flavour combination.
The secret of a successful Lavender and Earl Grey Cake is to be really careful with the amount of culinary lavender and Earl Grey tea added because a smidge too much and it quickly becomes overpowering.
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What does Earl Grey and Lavender Cake taste like?
Fragrant, but subtly so ✔️
Floral, but subtly so ✔️
Definitely unique ✔️
Definitely interesting ✔️
Soft and moist in texture ✔️
What is culinary lavender?
Culinary lavender is cultivated specifically for cooking. It is sweeter and less bitter than normal lavender. It also contains less oil than the varieties used for soap and perfume.
It also has a more genuine flavour than lavender essence, which is quite strong and can be a little artificial in flavour.
Love the flavour of Earl Grey tea? Why not give these beautiful Earl Grey Macarons a try.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Culinary lavender: is used to flavour the cake and buttercream. You can substitute culinary lavender with a few drops of lavender essence if you prefer. Be careful how much lavender essence you add because it is quite strong.
Earl Grey teabags: the contents are ground up with the culinary lavender and added to the cake batter.
The lavender and tea must be ground as finely as possible so that they disappear when baked.
Plain flour: or all-purpose flour if you are in the US.
Granulated sugar: or you can substitute with caster sugar.
Baking powder and Bicarbonate of Soda (baking soda): for leavening, the bicarb reacts with the yoghurt to ensure the cake rises.
Natural Greek yoghurt: to ensure a soft and moist cake.
Eggs: to bind the cake together.
Vegetable oil: ensures a moist cake.
Fine salt: helps to bring out flavours within the cake.
Vanilla extract: for a little vanilla flavour.
Instructions
See end of post RECIPE CARD for precise quantities and instructions.
Lavender and Earl Grey Cake
Picture 1: grind together your culinary lavender and the contents of your Earl Grey teabags.
Sift together your flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and salt.
Picture 2: whisk together your eggs and sugar until frothy.
Picture 1 
Picture 2
Picture 3: add your yoghurt, oil and vanilla extract and whisk in.
Picture 4: mix in your flour and ground culinary lavender and tea leaves until just combined, do this on a low setting to avoid overmixing and adding too much air. Plenty of air has already been added during the whisking stages. Too much air will result in holes throughout the baked cakes.
Picture 3 
Picture 4
Picture 5: add to prepared sandwich tins.
Picture 6: bake until golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean. The cakes will also be just coming away from the sides of the tins when ready.
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Picture 6
Lavender Buttercream
Picture 7: prepare all of your ingredients and sift your icing sugar. Sifted the icing sugar because it results in a smoother buttercream.
Picture 8: heat your culinary lavender and milk and leave to infuse. Infusing the lavender gives the buttercream just enough lavender flavour.
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Picture 9: beat your butter to ensure it is soft enough, it should not be clumping around the beater in lumps when ready. Then, gradually add half of your sifted icing sugar, beat in your cooled, infused lavender milk snd then add the rest of your icing sugar.
Picture 10: split the buttercream into two bowls and colour one with some purple gel food colouring.
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Picture 10
Picture 11: add a 1M Wilton large star tip to your piping bag and fill one side with purple buttercream and one side with uncoloured buttercream, we do this because we want a two-tone effect when we are icing. See this video for guidance on how to do this.
Then pipe star shapes around the outside of the first tier by holding the bag horizontally above and squeezing gently.
Picture 12: pipe a swirl around the centre to fill the tier, this does not need to be overly neat as it will not be seen (as you can probably tell by mine!).
Picture 11 
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Picture 13: pipe stars over the top and pipe smaller stars into any spaces left until the top of the cake is completely covered.
Top Tips
- To ensure your sandwich cakes are equal, weigh the amount of cake batter you add to each sandwich tin.
- Using a dual piping bag can make two-tone piping much easier.
- When piping buttercream hold the piping bag with two hands, this gives your piping added control. Use your dominant hand to hold the larger end of the bag for pressure and direction control and the other hand to guide your piping.
Variations
For a 3 tier cake add another third of the ingredients again.
You can omit either lavender or Earl Grey tea and the cake will still be lovely.
Decorating with Parma Violets is another option or try grinding them down and sprinkling over the top.
Storage
As this cake is full of lavender buttercream it will keep at room temperature for just a couple of days. Refrigerated it will keep for up to 5 days.
If you want to freeze this Lavender and Earl Grey Cake, wrap each layer in cling film (plastic wrap) first to protect them whilst in the freezer and make the buttercream when you want to use it.
Did you try this recipe?
Please leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the Recipe Card below.
FAQ
Culinary lavender is from the same herb family as thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil and sage. It pairs particularly well with lamb and rosemary. In baking, lavender is beautiful when used in scones.
Linked Recipes
See below for recipes with similar flavourings
📖 Recipe
Earl Grey and Lavender Cake
Here's what you'll need...
- 2 20cm sandwich tins
- Small saucepan
- Tea strainer optional
- Wilton 1M nozzle
- 2 Small palette knife or 2 butter knives
Ingredients you'll need...
Earl Grey and Lavender Cake
- 1 tablespoon Culinary lavender
- 3 Grey tea bags
- 300 g Plain flour all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon Baking powder must be level
- ½ teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda baking soda - must be level
- ½ teaspoon Fine salt must be level
- 3 Large eggs (US = extra large) at room temperature
- 225 g Granulated sugar or 1 Cup
- 300 g Natural Greek yoghurt or 1⅕ Cup
- 150 ml Vegetable oil or 10 level tablespoons
- 1½ teaspoon Vanilla extract
Lavender Buttercream
- 2 teaspoon Culinary lavender
- 60 ml Milk or ¼ Cup
- 225 g Unsalted butter softened or 1 Cup
- 450 g Icing sugar (confectioners sugar) sifted or 1¾ cups
- Purple food colouring preferably gel food colouring
Here's what we do...
Earl Grey Lavender Cake
- Set your over to 170°C/150°C Fan/340°F/Gas mark 3.
- Cut out circles of greaseproof (parchment) paper to cover the bases of your sandwich tins, grease the tins all over with some softened butter and then place the paper on the base and give it a light greasing too.
- Tip the contents of your Earl Grey tea bags into your pestle and mortar and add your culinary lavender, grind both until fine.
- Sift together your flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and salt and set aside.
- Using the whisk attachment, beat your eggs and sugar. Start on a low setting and turn up to fast once combined. This will take less than a minute to achieve. Once the mixture is frothy with little bubbles on top and has turned a paler yellow it is ready.
- Add your yoghurt, oil and vanilla extract and whisk until just incorporated.
- Replace your whisk attachment with the paddle attachment, add half of your flour mixture and mix in on a low setting, when incorporated mix in the rest along with your ground culinary lavender and Earl Grey tea. Stop once incorporated and just mixed in, do not overmix.
- Transfer to your prepared cake tins ensuring equal amounts of batter are added to each tin.
- Bake on separate shelves in your oven for about 35 minutes, or until golden all over and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Leave to cool in the tins for 5-10 minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack to fully cool.
Lavender Buttecream
- Place your culinary lavender and milk into your small saucepan and heat until bubbles just start to appear on the top.
- Set aside and leave to infuse and cool for 20 minutes, then strain using your sieve of tea strainer and discard the lavender.
- Using the paddle attachment, beat your softened butter until it is nice and spreadable.
- Leaving your mixer running on low, gradually add large spoonfuls of your sifted icing sugar, letting each one mostly beat in before adding another.
- Once you have added about half of your icing sugar pour in your lavender flavoured milk and beat in, then continue with your icing sugar until it has all been added.
- Ensure the buttercream is fully beaten and no icing sugar remains, then split it equally into 2 bowls.
- Add a little purple food colouring to one bowl and mix in thoroughly.
- Cut the end off your piping bag and add your piping nozzle. The nozzle should protrude through the end and the bag should fit tightly around it.
- Take one of your palette/butter knives and scoop half of your purple buttercream up and add it to one side of the bag. Do the same with half of your uncoloured buttercream on the other side.
- Holding the bag vertically above the edge of one of the tiers of your cake (base side up), gently squeeze so as to add a star-shape of buttercream, repeat around the edge of the cake.
- Then fill in the centre by just piping in a circular fashion.
- Refill your piping back with purple and uncoloured buttercream as per above.
- Add the top tier of the cake and ice all over with star shapes, fill in any spaces with smaller piped star shapes so that the cake is completely covered.
Supporting Notes
- To ensure your sandwich cakes are equal, weigh the amount of cake batter you add to each sandwich tin.
- Using a dual piping bag can make two-tone piping much easier.
- When piping buttercream hold the piping bag with two hands, this gives your piping added control. Use your dominant hand to hold the larger end of the bag for pressure and direction control and the other hand to guide your piping.
Jax says
I plan to make cupcakes with this recipe this weekend and was wondering if you have ever prepped the batter in advance and then baked a day or two later (stored in fridge, of course). I have definitely done this for cookies, but never for a cake or cupcake batter. I'm not sure if the flour soaking in wet batter would cause problems or not, but anything I could prep ahead, helps. So, have you done this? Thanks.
As a side note, I can see the rating for this recipe, but not any comments. I always find the comments helpful in terms of modifications people make and their experience. (I live at a high altitude, so seeing people comment with those experiences helps).
Ella's Better Bakes says
Hi Jax, to be honest, I haven't refrigerated cake batter for this particular cake, however as long as you allow it to come back up to room temperature before baking you should be fine. Hope your cupcakes turn out well.