Ontario’s Nikki Fotheringham is serious about flowers: The writer and sustainable living expert lives in the woods and grows a variety of blooms in her backyard meadow, which are then turned into beautiful edible products for sale in her farm store. She’s now sharing some of her most successful recipes in Taste Buds: A Field Guide to Cooking and Baking with Flowers, out May 7, 2024. “This is a special occasion cake,” Fotheringham explains in the introduction for her Salted Honey Chamomile Cake recipe. “I make it most often for big-ticket events like birthdays, graduations and weddings. But you can also make it to celebrate smaller events, like the first crocus flower in spring, getting all the laundry done or just generally crushing it. It is also an excellent breakfast cake. If you ask me, the very best thing about it is the salted honey. Salt enhances the flavours of other foods, especially sweet ones. The usually subtle delicacy of honey gets such a boost from the sea salt that you’ll be eating the frosting with a spoon (which is perfectly acceptable, of course).”
Salted Honey Chamomile Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1½ cups whole milk
- 40 crushed dried chamomile flowers or 4 chamomile tea bags
- 3⅔ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp fine kosher salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- 1½ cups unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs + 2 large egg whites at room temperature
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
Frosting
- ¼ cup salted butter at room temperature
- 1 cup icing sugar
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
Instructions
Cake
- Place the milk in a small pot and bring it to a simmer over medium heat. Do not let it come to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the chamomile. Leave to steep until the milk is room temperature. Strain out the chamomile, but do not squeeze it or the milk might taste bitter. Discard the chamomile. Set the milk aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease two 9 inch (23 cm) round cake pans.
- Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda into a large bowl.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter with the sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, egg whites and vanilla and mix well to combine, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl as needed.
- Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. You want everything to be just mixed in for this batter. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Once the batter is combined, pour it into the prepared cake pans.
- Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Place the cake pans on wire racks and let the cakes cool completely in the pans.
Frosting
- Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter with the icing sugar, salt, honey and lemon juice on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Once the cakes are cool, remove them from the pans. Place one cake layer on a cake stand and top it with about one-third of the buttercream. Sandwich the second layer on top. Now use the remaining frosting to cover the outside of your cake.
- You can decorate it as you wish, but if you have fresh, edible flowers, they add a splash of color and pizzazz. You can use chamomile flowers or whatever you have on hand.
- Store the cake in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
