Earthday Birthday Cake

I tell you this cake smells amazing, I am not kidding.  The blending of Earl Grey and Lavender, good enough to eat I think...

It didn't take me all that long to decide what kind of birthday cake to make for Gabs this year.  In this house we drink almost as much tea as we do water, and we drink a lot of both.  Brian thinks we have a tea addiction, I like to think of it as being very eclectic in the flavors we drink.  I am sure that we have so many varieties of tea that we could give David's Tea a serious competition.  One of Gabby's favorite things is tea, she even has tea scented candles.  I am sure she has had dreams about making tea.  So when I came across a pin/blog/post or something  mentioning Earl Grey cupcakes with Lavender icing I knew that was the thing for this years cake.  Both of them are her favorite tea's. (I think) 

I wasn't sure I was going to blog this, as I seemed to have burned my self out completely on Valentine's Day.  I realized how much I hate writing, but I love to share things I have created.  Seriously conflicted here.  I just know how much you will all love this recipe so I have to share.  I read through about 20 different recipes and kind of made this up, I hope that I remember it all.  The cake I adapted from Urban Poser was the Coconut French Pound Cake.  It is  my current go to cake.  I also adapted her Strawberry Frosting.  I have tried at least 50 times to add a link to her blog for this, but my dinosaur of a iMac will not let me do it.  It is most frustrating, could be why I don't post on my blog all that  much.  I hope you enjoy this cake as much as we did.

Earl Grey Coconut Flour Cake

1 cup Coconut milk

3 TBSP Loose Earl Grey Tea, or 3 tea bags

1 cup plus 4 tsp coconut flour 

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

10 whole eggs (4 of them separated)

approx. 1/3 cup melted coconut oil

1 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp lemon juice

Cake:

Heat the milk and steep your tea, allowing to steep until cool or your taste preference.  I left the tea in until it was cooled.  Measure your milk and top it up to one cup with coconut oil. (mine had evaporated away 1/3 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease your pans with coconut oil, and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Sift the dry ingredients together and set aside.

Separate 4 of the eggs, setting aside the egg whites.  The bowl with the  yolks you will add the rest of the eggs into.  Mix with hand mixer.  

With the hand mixer, mix the honey, vanilla, lemon juice and the tea infused coconut milk and coconut oil. Mix until well blended.

On low speed add the dry ingredients into honey mixture, continue to mix until no lumps are left.

Add the eggs (not including the 4 egg whites) in three phases.

In a small bowl, beat the egg whites till thick soft peaks form.  Fold into the batter.

Pour the batter into three greased 6 inch round cake pans.  

Bake for 30 min, checking towards the end, as ovens may vary and you don't want them too browned.  They should be a nice golden color, and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.

I allowed the cakes to cool 15 minutes before removing them from the pan.  Cool on racks until room temperature before icing them.

Lavender Icing

(dairy/refined sugar free)

1 cup organic palm shortening

2/3 cup honey

3 tsp dried food grade lavender flowers

4 TBSP arrowroot powder

4 tsp coconut flour

2 TBSP canned chilled coconut milk cream (just the cream from the top)

heat your honey and stir in the lavender.  Allow it to cool.  Strain and discard the lavender.  

Combine all the ingredients except the coconut milk.  Beat until smooth, and the coconut cream and beat until well combined.  I added a small amount lavender color paste to tint it.