Chamomile birthday cake
Although let’s be honest, this could be equally called the flop cake, the basement cake or the lesson learnt cake…
Rewinding to yesterday morning, the morning of Sam’s birthday, I envisioned a two-layer cake, assembled with a layer of whipped cream and blackberry jam, covered in a white whipped cream frosting and topped with flowers.
Fast forwarding to the afternoon, I scored almost all points, except… Well, the layers. I was so frustrated I could cry when the gas oven STOPPED WORKING as I baked the second cake, which was to be assembled at the top of the first one.
I still don’t know what happened, and after many matches I just gave up. Alright, I have a basement cake now, the first floor has deserted me, and learnt my lesson: instead of baking two cakes separately, from now on I’ll be baking a tall cake and simply cut it in half. What was I thinking anyway?
The frosting did not disappoint, though, and I am happy to say we all did the best out of a relatively thin cake - which let’s also be honest about that, was more than enough for just the three of us!
I’m sharing the recipe for this cake with you today. The ingredients listed yield two cakes, or a large one you can cut in half. Or just a large cake, I mean, who said you have to make layers anyway?! Enjoy it in all its glory, with or without layers, and with or without frosting.
Note: you can replace sugar for honey. One cup of sugar equals 3/4 cup of honey. When using honey, you can reduce the liquid by 1/4 or, alternatively, add 4 tablespoons of flour for every 3/4 cup of honey used. There’s always room to play with when it comes to textures, but keep this in mind if you don’t want your dough to bee too liquid.
Ingredients
🌸 3/4 cups of butter
🌸 1 1/3 cups of sugar
🌸 6 eggs, whites and yolks separated
🌸 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
🌸 2 1/2 cups of flour (I used 1 cup of spelt flour and the remaining 1/12 cups of wheat flour)
🌸 3 teaspoons of baking powder
🌸 1 1/3 cups of milk, milk substitute (I used almond milk) or water
🌸 2 tablespoons of lose dry chamomile flowers or 4 teabags of chamomile
Directions
🌸 Start by brewing your chamomile infusion. Bring the milk, milk substitute or water to an almost-boil and drop the chamomile in. Turn off the heat and let it steep until it’s at room temperature before straining.
🌸 Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla and egg yolks.
🌸 Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
🌸 Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients and the cooled infusion into the wet mixture.
🌸 Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold into the mix.
🌸 Pour into two (or one!) well greased round cake tins and bake at 190ºC for 25 mins.
Now let’s talk about the frosting! We were low on ingredients, so I went for the simplest whipped cream frosting. If you want to do one too, all you need is:
🌸 1 cup of cream, cold (min. 30% fat as a rule of thumb for whipping!)
🌸 1/2 cup of powered sugar
Beat beat beat (I like playing Michael Jackson’s Beat it on the background every time I beat cream… It’s the perfect pick-me-up when all you want to do is rest your hands! And it’s usually just the timelenght I need to get those stiff peaks!)
Once you’re happy with the cream, spread it all over the cake. I like that it doesn’t have to look perfect, but by all means, be as perfectionist as you’d like. I won’t judge you either way!
Note: You might have some left. I surely did, because I was counting on this quantity for my original 2-layer marvel. Beat only 1/2 cup of cream if you’d like to play it safe.
Now it’s all about the decoration! Chose edible flowers and leaves and have fun placing them across the cake. I used borage, pansies and lemon balm leaves, which we ate along the cake, as well as wild lavender and Mediterranean chamomile, which we’ve politely put aside.
Some edibles you can use for decoration, depending on your climate and what’s available, are:
🐝 calendula
🐝 violets
🐝 nasturtium
🐝 borage
🐝 pansies
🐝 mint leaves (have fun with the different members of the mint family! Chocolate mint, for example, could be fab in a cake, as well as thyme!)
🐝 rose petals
🐝 red clover
🐝 dandelion flowers
At the end of the day, yes, the cake is wonderful, it’s spongy and light, but more than half the fun is in the decoration. Eating flowers and incorporating them in different dishes brings so much joy. That simple act embodies something so special and so unique, like a celebration in itself. Well worth a basement cake, if you ask me! :)