Does anyone else feel that the days and month are slipping by too quickly? Now our children are growing up, our weeks are a regular countdown of how much we need to get done before the next bank of holidays come along. I love my children and adore all of our holiday adventures, but their holidays amass to five months every year so I feel like the school terms are a crazy rollercoaster of cramming everything we need to do for ourselves as well as a constant stream of homework, playdates, clubs & parties - our boys have better social lives than us!!
Cake making can take up a lot of my weekdays and I'm generally kept busy during term time. It's a pretty special job being asked to make people's special celebration cakes for them. I'm also lucky that most of my designs are different as I find the challenge of making the different designs very rewarding. Although this week I had a cake that really tested my boundaries! I thought I was well prepared but it seemed that the day I came to put it all together was just not my day!!! Having said that, now it's finished, I can't wait to share one of most fearsome villains from the childhood with you this weekend!! And sometimes, when I'm making cake for other people, I just need some cake of my own.
This orange blossom honey & chamomile cake was inspired by a magazine recipe that I read on my travels. With all the chocolate, ganache and swiss meringue buttercream going through my kitchen this week, I thought it was be a nice change to make something a little healthier for the family! The cake is made from almonds and therefore gluten free. I find that almond cakes can be a little heavy and dense so it's really lovely to have the flavours of chamomile and orange blossom honey running throughout adding some floral and sweet notes to the cake.
The sweetness of the cake comes from the honey and there isn't any additional sugar so you feel like you're being even more virtuous! The cream cheese frosting is the less healthy bit but it really does need a sweet topping to bring the cake totally alive. And I added an extra drizzle of honey on top of the frosting!
I'm loving all of the flowers in the garden at the moment and I'm lucky that some wonderful friends bought me the prettiest bouquet of flowers last weekend so we're still enjoying their blooms in the kitchen and it makes a lovely pop of colour on top of the cake.
I think this is just the most perfect afternoon tea cake to share with friends :)
orange blossom honey & chamomile cake
makes a 7 inch cake
ingredients
- 2 chamomile teabags (around 2 tbsp of tea)
- 100g butter at room temperature
- 150g orange blossom honey + 2 tbsp orange blossom honey
- 5 large eggs
- 240g almond meal
- 1 tsp baking powder (gluten free)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 orange, zest only
- 1 lemon, zest only
- 360g cream cheese, full fat
- 7 inch baking tin
method
- grease and line your baking tin
- preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius
- put the butter, 150g honey and chamomile tea into the mixer and beat for 2 minutes until combined
- add the eggs, almond, baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla extract and the orange and lemon zest and mix together until smooth
- pour the batter into the cake tin and level the surface
- bake for around 45-50 minutes until a skewer in the centre comes out clean
- leave to cool for around 30 minutes in its tin
- when the cake is completely cool, you can frost it
- beat together the cream cheese, 2 tbsp orange blossom honey and 1 tsp vanilla until combined - it's important not to overbeat this so this, so just until combined
- spread the frosting all over the cake including the sides
- put the cake into the fridge for around 30 minutes so that the frosting will set some more
- decorate with some little flowers or serve it just as it is!
If you keep this cake in the fridge for a few days, the frosting will start to crack but it can also be kept in an airtight container in a cool place :)