Cooking with lavender – pancakes

I have a lovely lavender plant in my garden. It’s one of the few plants that survived me.
We don’t get many hours of sunlight, but it thrives in the shade.

But after visiting Bridgetown and all the lavender inspired soaps, and oils I’ve been thinking about how I can get more use out of it.

Currently we use it as a mosquito repellant, there’s always some hanging on our outside light.
I’m a mosquito magnet and I notice the difference.
I’ve tried those yellow mosquito lights but they don’t do anything.

Unfortunately I really don’t like the smell of lavender. My hay fever reacts badly to it, and it reminds me of old lady potpourri. So I’m not likely to have it inside the house.
I enjoy citrus fragrances a lot more and the only time my house smells of flowers it’s not by my choice.
But I did a bit of research which is opening my eyes to cooking with lavender.

There’s a chocolate lavender cake which I really want to try, but unfortunately couldn’t get the oven to light.
So instead I made the lavender sugar syrup by itself. Then Instead of putting it on an invisible chocolate cake, I put it on pancakes.

Inspired by that I made a lavender compound butter to go with it as well.
Absolutely delicious.

bek’s pantry pancakes

This is the ‘day before the food shopping’ pancakes, when you have run out of milk, eggs, and can’t be bothered popping to the shops just for that.
So I always have powdered eggs and powdered milk in the pantry. They don’t get used that often, but they’re good to take camping, and for when laziness strikes. Of course you can use 1 egg and 1 cup of milk but it really tastes pretty good for powder. I find it also makes it easier to get all the lumps out.

the ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tablespoon egg powder
1/2 cup milk powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup water

the method
Mix all the dry ingredients together.
Add the water and mix until there are no lumps.
Add more water if necessary.

I always make it in a Pyrex jug, just because that way I can save on washing up.

lavender sugar syrup
the ingredients
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
1 sprig of lavender

the method
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.
Bring to the boil.
Keep boiling until the sauce thickens.
Take off the heat and once it has cooled slightly (because it will be very hot), pour it through a sieve, and serve.

lavender compound butter
This was a whim. But melted on the pancakes it was a whim that payed off.

the ingredients
butter
Lavender (cut into small pieces)
Lemon zest
Lemon juice

the method
Mix it all together.

It really comes down to eyeballing it, particularly when you only want a little bit.

I’m really not an authority on cooking pancakes. In fact I’m shocking at it. So bad that I’ve bought a crepe maker into my arsenal. It always heats to the right temperature and because it’s non-stick I don’t get those first pancake blues, where the first pancake is soaked in butter.
I do love my crepe maker.

I’m now going to be looking for more ways to use lavender in my cooking.