Layers of dark chocolate cake and lavender frosting piled high with blackberries and fresh cherries

This is the dreamiest cake you’ll ever have. I came up with this show-stopping cake for A Midsummer Night’s Dream dinner party. I wanted lavender for the “dream” angle since lavender helps you sleep. I did hours and hours and days and days of research and there were no lavender cake nor frosting recipes that were even close to what I was wanting. I finally decided to try what I thought would work and man oh man, did it ever work!

If you think you don’t like lavender, please keep reading. My mom very much dislikes lavender as a culinary flavor and she dubbed this one of the best cakes she’s ever had. My friend Mark had a slice to be polite, since he also dislikes lavender, and had two more slices throughout the evening. I think all of my guests at my Midsummer party had two slices of cake. It’s that good. It doesn’t taste too floral and the lavender complements the dark chocolate beautifully. The juicy berries are literally the cherry on top of this elegant dessert.

I used my favorite dark chocolate cake for the base of this naked cake. If you don’t like naked cakes for whatever reason, by all means, frost the sides. You won’t offend me. If you are serving it as a naked cake, I recommend dusting the cake pans with cocoa powder instead of flour so that your chocolate cake layers don’t have white ruining the affect.

The lavender frosting is so simple. If you’e made any of my cakes before, you know that I like my frosting light and fluffy, not heavy and buttery. I’m always so proud by how many people tell me that they don’t like cake but they love my cake. I’m a stickler for moist cake and I add twice as much milk to frosting as most people. In this case, the milk is heated with culinary grade lavender (you can get a bag for cheap on Amazon) to infuse it. Let it hang out in the fridge for 4-6 hours, then proceed with your frosting. The frosting on its own is a light gray color but I tinted mine purple for the lavender look.

I cannot even stress to you how good this cake is. None of my taste testers nor my Midsummer guests were fans of lavender and they all loved this cake. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Chocolate Lavender Dream Cake
For lavender milk:
1/4 cup milk
2 Tbsp dried culinary lavender
For the cake:

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup 1% milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
Cocoa powder to dust the pans
Blackberries and edible flowers for garnish
Lavender frosting
 
For the Lavender Frosting:
6 cups powdered sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup lavender-infused milk (see above)
1 tsp vanilla extract
 

1. In a small sauce pan, heat 1/4 cup milk with 2 Tbsp dried culinary lavender. Remove from heat, let cool, and allow lavender to steep for at least four hours in the fridge.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease three 8″ cake pans and coat thoroughly with cocoa powder.
3. Combine sugar, flour, dark cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large mixing bowl. Add eggs one at a time and mix until incorporated. Add milk, oil and vanilla all at once and beat on medium speed of mixer about two minutes. Stir in the boiling water. Divide batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake 22 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.
5. Beat softened butter with an electric mixer. Add 3 cups powdered sugar and beat until uniform in color.
6. Strain dried lavender from milk by pouring it through a sieve. Top off with additional milk if needed so that you have 1/4 cup. (Some of the milk may have been absorbed by the lavender.)
7. Add lavender-infused milk, vanilla extract, and remaining 3 cups powdered sugar to frosting and beat until smooth. Tint desired shade of purple.
8. Spread frosting on three layers of cake, leaving the sides naked. Top with blackberries and fresh cherries.

Read more about A Midsummer Night’s Dream party here. Watch the episode:

Read more about A Midsummer Night’s Dream here. Watch the episode:

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Have a dreamy day,

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