Tea Time Blueberry Cake

Hello there. Are you enjoying the summer? Specifically, are you enjoying the summer fruit? I hope so. This first month of my summer has been uncharacteristically busy -- an out-of-the norm for me. Usually when school ends, I spend a good week and a half doing nothing and mulling about, reminiscing and baking scones or making a treat for a road trip. Not this year. Boo hoo.

But I did make cake. A wonderful, hearty, spelt and blueberry tea cake, sweetened with dark maple syrup and made with the season's first Ontario blueberries. I obsess over berries each summer, and in the fall, I always regret not eating more. Berries are so fleeting and will always be. And even though I know the best way to eat these local delights is to just enjoy them straight up, I can never resist baking up batches of goodies studded with ripe, local fruit. This cake is no different. It's a very simple, no fuss cake, adapted from one of Heidi's recipes at 101 Cookbooks. Her version uses huckleberries and includes a little crumble topping. Seeing as I've never seen a huckleberry here in Ontario before, I decided that blueberries would have to do, and although I love crumble topping, I skipped it for a more wholesome, breakfast friendly-version of this cake. Heidi also included some fresh rosemary and thyme in her cake and I loved the idea of herbs adding that little something extra to a dessert. I followed her lead with the thyme, as each summer they grow like mad on the balcony and I feel bad if I don't use them up, but instead of the rosemary, I added some fresh lavender leaves which perfumed the cake ever-so-slightly -- perfect with the floral, fruity berries.

While making this cake, I thought about one summer when my sister drove my best friend and I to a farm just north of the city, and we spent the afternoon in the sun, picking blueberries and raspberries. When I sampled the blueberries I bought for this cake, the whole day came flooding back to my mind -- the hot, dusty drive out of town, the sun on the back of my neck as we stooped over the pick our berry treasures, the way I giggled when a farm boy with an accent handed me my blended lemonade and grilled corn on the cob, the rustic, touristic feel inside the gift shop where you could buy jams, pies, and other assorted goodies, and the way my best friend giggled at me when I bought honey-roasted soybeans of all things at the shop and snacked on them all the way home in the car. Gosh, that was a good 7 or 8 years ago, but I remember it so clearly.

I'm not sure if there will be road trips, berry picking or dusty car rides into farm land this year. But there will be cake, there's already been lots of coffee, and there will always be giggles and good times.

Happy Summer. I hope you're having a good one .. and I hope it lasts forever ...

Maple Blueberry Tea Cake
adapted from 101 Cookbooks

1/4 cup of spelt flakes
1/3 cup of skim milk yogurt
zest and juice of one lemon
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup of dark maple syrup (grade B amber)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of canola oil
3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves only
5-6 fresh lavender leaves, finely chopped
1 cup of spelt flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 cup of fresh blueberries, washed

1. In a large bowl, combine the spelt flakes, lemon juice and zest and yogurt. Stir well and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding the egg, maple syrup, vanilla and canola oil. Mix well.

2. Add the thyme and lavender and sift in the flour, baking soda and powder. Mix until just combined. Add the blueberries and give it one final mix.

3. Pour your batter into a baking pan and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until the cake tester inserted comes out clean and the top of the cake is springy when you touch it.

4. Serve with tea, coffee or big dollop of yogurt and more fresh berries for breakfast!

Lavender Manifesto

If you haven't already checked out the blog Sociologists Eat Chocolate, written by the mysterious and thoughtful Blackcurrent Productions, please go now. I'll wait ...

Isn't it great? I love all the different types of chocolate that are showcased and all the quirky and sometimes random comments from the tasters. I especially like the "Manifesto" -- the most interesting, funny or thought-provoking comment. It's brilliant and I wish that I were one of the tasters -- especially when the theme of Chocolate and Lavender came about. Lavender? I've never cooked with lavender before, though I know it's sometimes added as one of the herbs in the popular herbes de Provence mix. The thought intrigued me; I could almost taste it. Dare I try? When my little, non-nonchalant comment about making cookies with lavender got a response that suggested shortbread, my mind was made up. But I wasn't just going to make lavender shortbread. I was going to make different kinds, and have tasters judge each one, in a little tribute to my elusive inspiration.


I began with a little research -- a study on shortbread. Others have done it. And I found out that people put all sorts of things into shortbread -- not just lavender. Rosemary and honey were among the ones that definitely intrigued me. And of course, there's chocolate. And lemon mixed with lavender.. how can I resist my favourite citrus? In the end, I came up with four combinations:

1) honey and lavender
2) honey, lavender and lemon
3) chocolate/cocoa and lavender
4) chocolate/cocoa,rosemary and orange orange -- to mimick Organicfair's Provence chocolate featured her in the the Lavender Chocolate tasting.

I used a combination of fresh lavender (sneakily snipped from my parents' neighbour's garden .. thanks Jacquie!) and dried, a summer blossom honey, and high quality fair trade Camino cocoa powder. Here's what the tasters had to say:


Honey and Lavender

1. It’s delicious (turns away shyly). I can very much taste the lavender, but it’s not to say that’s too much lavender.
2. There is it ..nice and floral, but something is missing ...
3. I think I can taste honey more than lavender – it’s a good cookie, but .. (has sinus problems) I don’t know if this is affecting my taste buds or not.



Honey, Lavender and Lemon

1. My body feels tingly when I eat it. Very light lavender – good balance with the lemon.
2. I get the lavender hit first .. and then comes the lemon, barely sour tang. Crisp, not a tender shortbread texture, but still buttery and rich.
3. Ok I’m getting little hints of citrusy but again, I don’t taste the lavender.


Chocolate and Lavender

1. Wow, it’s really like pooof! Lavender! The first thing I taste is lavender, right in my cheeks and then the chocolate starts melting in my mouth.
2. Rich chocolate and delicate flowers ... I get a real lavender hit on this one.
3. Ok I get some now (lavender!).



Chocolate, Lavender, Orange, Rosemary

1. First it’s the rosemary, and then it instantly blends with the chocolate, and then when I swallow it, I get the orange. The lavender.. it’s not lost, but the first thing I taste is the rosemary.
2. It’s orange and chocolate first and foremost – and then little hints of rosemary here and little hints of lavender there.
3. Ohhh.. crumblier, softer, melting in my mouth. I like the cocoa chocolate taste – to me it just tastes like chocolate shortbread. The only time I taste the citrus is when I get little bits of the peel, little sparkles of citrus that surprise the tongue amidst the sea of cocoa. I didn’t even taste the rosemary.

So I learned a few things. First, the lavender taste and scent is much stronger when you taste the cookie right from the oven (taster 3 tasted the cookies after they had cooled for a few hours .. she also had sinus issues but we won't go there). Confectioners sugar results in a crisper, tighter cookie -- the crumblier, tender texture was preferred. The lavender almost needs something to go along with it -- chocolate, lemon .. --it's the floral hit that needs something to balance it out. And ... I love playing with lavender! There will be more to come -- I'm going to going to modify the lemon and lavender one (which seemed to be the favourite) and see what the tasters think of that. In the mean time, I'll leave you with the recipe sources and ...

Today's manifesto: I can tell there’s something different but I don’t know that it’s necessarily lavender which is a good thing because I think then it would just taste like potpourri and I’m not into tasting potpourri. (gigglejuice is not only a critical criminology sociologist --I hope I got that one right! -- but is also known to keep large bars of chocolate by her desk during exam time AND likes to cook and bake!)

Honey and Lavender Shortbread Honey, Lavender and Lemon Shortbread

I was nudged in the right direction by this post from tara at Sevenspoons, who made a honeyed-rosemary shortbread based on this original recipe from Epicurious. I just substituted the lavender for the rosemary and followed the recipe exactly. The idea to add lemon came from this post at Jules Food. I did exactly what was suggested: added the zest of one lemon and a little squeeze of the juice.

Chocolate and Lavender Shortbread Chocolate, Rosemary, Lavender and Orange Shortbread

The original recipe for chocolate shortbread came from this post at Epicurious. I just added a tablespoon of lavender. The flavour combination of chocolate, rosemary, lavender and orange was, as mentioned, inspired by one of Blackcurrent's chocolates: Organicfair's Provence. For this, in addition to the tablespoon of lavender, I added a teaspoon of finely chopped rosemary, and 2 teaspoons of orange zest.