This is not a food blog, but this also isn’t my first recipe on this blog, so I’m going for it. I made a very good, very easy cake this week and I. Want. To. Talk. About. It.
I was asked to make a lemon poppy seed cake for work. I knew I wanted to make it a cake I would be excited about, so I decided to do a lavender buttercream frosting: lavender goes super well with lemon, it’s a unique flavor, and I personally enjoy florals.
However, I also knew that I didn’t have the time or energy to make a cake from scratch on a Monday night, so I took a couple of shortcuts.
If I was a food blogger, this cake would probably be my greatest shame because it has a deep, dark secret.
It is a BOX MIX Cake.
I know, I know. I’ll pause for your gasps. I have never gotten so many compliments for a cake, though. So I think this is an experiment I’m going to repeat quite a few times.
Lemon Poppy Seed Cake “Recipe”
Ingredients
1. Vanilla Cake Mix
2. One more egg than the recipe calls for
3. Milk instead of water, when the mix calls for it.
4. The zest of two large lemons (achieved by lightly using a cheese grater on the washed rind of a lemon, if you’re zester-less)
5. A reasonable amount of poppy seeds
Directions
Follow the direction on the cake mix box, using substitutions of milk for water and an extra egg, and adding poppy seeds and lemons to batter before mixing.
Celebrate!
Lavender Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Ingredients
4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lavender buds
Directions
Heat milk and lavender buds in small saucepan on stove at medium heat
Once simmering, turn off heat and let cool
Strain solids out of milk and set aside
In large mixing bowl, beat butter until smooth
Mix sugar and vanilla into butter
Slowly add in 3-5 tablespoons of infused milk, depending on desired consistency
To decorate, I simply covered my two cake rounds with the icing, scraped little lines in the icing with the ridges of that yellow cake knife as a “design” and sprinkled lavender buds around the edge.
Again, I have never gotten so many compliments on a cake and it took two and a half hours to make starting from the time I left the house to go to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients to the time I was back on the couch watching Netflix. Which is why I’m sharing it with you, so you can make a very easy, very tasty cake too.