Lavender Earl Grey Cake with Lavender Buttercream

A two tier frosted cake on a black stand, with a large slice of cake cut out.

5 from 2 votes

Lavender Earl Grey Cake with Lavender Buttercream

This lavender Earl Grey cake recipe makes a deliciously aromatic tea flavored cake decorated with scrumptious lavender buttercream!

Prep Time20

Cook Time45

Decorating time30

Total Time1 35

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: Seven inches round cake

Calories: 9407.9kcal

Author: Priya Maha

Ingredients

Cake

440 g self raising flour
360 g butter
280 g granulated sugar
4 eggs
240 ml milk
4 Earl Grey tea bags
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Lavender Buttercream

500 g powdered sugar (icing sugar)
250 g butter
1 teaspoon lavender powder
2 tablespoon milk (optional)
Purple food coloring (optional)

Decoration

Lavender buds

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Baking the cakes

Preheat oven to 160 °Celsius.
Pour milk into a small pot and heat up until the sides start to bubble. Turn off the heat and dip 3 Earl Grey tea bags into the milk. Cover the pot and let the tea steep in the hot milk for 3 minutes.
Remove the tea bags (squeeze out all the tea with the back of a spoon) and discard them. Leave the tea-infused milk aside to cool.
Cut the remaining one tea bag and pour the tea leaves into a food processor. Add approximately 3 to 4 tablespoons of the granulated sugar and blend both until the tea comes to a fine powder. Transfer the sugar-tea leaves mixture into a large mixing bowl.
Add the remaining granulated sugar to the bowl, followed by the butter.
Cream the butter, sugar and the ground tea leaves until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl half way through.
Add the eggs into the creamed mixture, one at a time. Each time, beat until all the traces of the egg is no longer visible. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder into the creamed ingredients and fold these dry ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with the tea infused milk in 3 batches. Start and end with the flour mixture.
Divide the cake batter into 2 well greased and floured 7 inches round cake tins.
Level the tops and bake at 160°Celsius for 45 minutes.
Test the cakes at 40 minutes by inserting a skewer in the center of the cakes. If the skewer comes out without any wet batter sticking to it, the cakes are done and can be removed from the oven. Otherwise, let them bake further until the 45 minutes is up.
Remove cakes from the oven and let them cool in the tins for about 2 to 3 minutes before turning them out onto wire racks to cool completely before decorating.

Making the buttercream

Sift the powdered sugar into a large bowl.
Add the butter and beat both until the mixture turns light and fluffy.
Sift in the lavender powder and continue to beat until the lavender powder is well incorporated.
Add a few drop of purple food coloring if desired. Mix well. If the buttercream is too stiff, add some milk and beat until smooth.

Decorating the cake

Level the top of each cake layer.
Sandwich both with some lavender buttercream.
Cover the sides and top of the stacked layers with remaining buttercream and smooth with an icing spatula or smoother.
Use an offset spatula to make continuous horizontal lines all around the sides and top of the cake as decoration.
Decorate the top edges of the cake with lavender buds.

Notes

Tips for a moist cake:

Keep to the baking time. Overbaking will result in a dry cake. It is best to check the cake for doneness at least 10 minutes before the baking time is up. Insert a skewer into the center of the cake and if it comes out without any wet cake batter sticking to it, it is done and can be removed from the oven. If not, let it continue baking for another few minutes before testing again.
Once the cake is baked and removed from the cake tin, keep it covered with a kitchen towel as it cools down to room temperature. Covering the cake will also help in avoiding it from becoming dry.
The other tip is to wrap the cake in cling wrap once it cools down to a warm temperature and refrigerating it until it cools down completely or overnight. This process traps the steam from the cake and helps keep the cake moist even after it has cooled down completely. To serve the cake, remove it from the fridge and let it come to room temperature before removing the cling wrap. This will avoid condensation on the cake which can reduce its shelf life.

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