Orange lavender and almond syrup cake

I love quiet get-togethers (this quote really summed it up well for me). I have control how loud the music is, I can hear what everybody is saying, there is no distractions and the food is nice.

Last weekend we had friends over and even though I always dream of taking lovely Kinfolk like photos of those gatherings, but when friends come I don’t want to play with my camera. I want to be fully present. But I’m sure you can easily imagine casual chat over a glass of wine. There were cookbooks, dog breeds involved and many other important and non-important topics as well.

I think finally we got a recipe for a perfect menu. A slow roasted lamb has been a hit and it wasn’t labor intensive. We made a salad that was a little bit more fancy than usual (Ottolenghi’s Kind Of Waldorf Slaw Salad from Plenty More, you must try it). And a cake.
I always try different cake anyway. This cake caught my eye in “Modern Vegetarian” by Maria Elia. I wasn’t too convinced to amount of lavender in a recipe. I was afraid the cake will turn out soapy. But my, oh my orange and lavender is amazing. Even if you don’t feel like making a cake, just make the syrup itself. Soooo good.

Recipe from Modern Vegetarian by Maria Elia

For a 20×20-cm square pan

• • 250g butter
  • 200g sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 50g plain flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • juice and grated zest of 2 oranges
  • 250g semolina
  • 200g ground almond
  • 120 Greek yoghurt

For syrup

• juice and grated zest of 2 oranges
• 4 tsp dried lavender
• 375ml water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 275g sugar

Preheat the oven to 170°C/160°C fan.

Butter and flour a 20×20-cm square pan.

Cake

In a big bowl beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Sift in the flour and baking powder.

Add in the orange zest, semolina and ground almonds and stir it until well combined.

Add the orange juice and yoghurt and stir gently until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bake in preheated oven for around 1 hour, or until or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Syrup

Place all the ingredients in a medium saucepan over a low heat and bring to boil.

Simmer for 30 minutes or until it thickens a little bit.

Pour half of the hot syrup over hot cake. Allow the cake to cool before slicing.

Serve with remaining syrup drizzled over.

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