Color and flavor and perfume too.
Of all the herbs we use, either culinarily or ornamentaly, lavender is an aroma, a color, a flower and an herb. Certainly many of the plants which produce our spices have an aroma, but few of them are as versatile in usage as lavender.
Lavender is well known as the scent in a sachet or fine soap, but it lends itself as a flavor very well to honey lavender ice cream or infused into crème Anglaise or pastry cream for a nice perfume and flavor to the finished dish. Lavender flowers can also be pulsed briefly along with granulated sugar in a food processer to make lavender sugar.
Who Used It First
The word Lavender comes from the Latin verb, “to wash,” which makes its presence in soaps such a fitting addition. Romans used lavender to scent their baths, bed, cloths and hair.
Lavender, a member of the mint family, was likely found in the Mediterranean countries and the Middle East and India. It’s been making things smell good for some 2500 years.[1]
There are at least 28 species of lavender and of those we may be most familiar with only a few. English lavender, curiously not from England, is also most likely culinary lavender. “The names widely used for some of the species, ‘English lavender’, ‘French lavender’ and ‘Spanish lavender’ are all imprecisely applied.”[2] The various subspecies do appear different from each other with some flowers being staggered up the stem and in other species bunched all together. All are generally regarded as safe in normal food or medicinal quantities.[3]
What to Use
Lavender flowers at my house grow in 6 places up the stalk and have 8 or so flowers at each spot. For full potency of aroma, pick them before the open and the scent will last for months. Opened blooms are very pretty and exhibit the color and aroma very nicely.
Lavender leaves, the plant part, also has a flavor. It has an aroma, but requires a bit of pinching between your fingers to smell it. It does have the lavender smell you expect but also a deeper note of peppery rosemary or mint. A bit woodsy, as it were. It does have a more concentrated smell and therefore taste. It is an herb, but one which I’ve not seen for sale. The only way to get this part of the lavender is grow it or know someone who does.
I’ve used the leaves in a sauce for a venison dish which was superb. The leaves are strong enough to stand up to rich game meats such as venison or antelope or ostrich or duck.
From type to type, the foliage can appear different. In the case of the lavender outside my house, which I have inexpertly determined to be Spanish, the leaves appear as rosemary. On other plants the foliage may have white fuzz and still other appear more flat, as a cedar frond.
Lavender in baking
When I was at a restaurant in Naples, FL we made a kind of focaccia with herbs de Provence in the dough. Well, that was just amazing and the little purple bits of the flower were a nice little splash of unexpected color and flavor. If you wish, adding the following mix into the Focaccia alla Genovese.
Herbs de Provence
A lovely spice mix which has no real ratio. Feel free to alter this as your tastebuds dictate. It is very good with fish and vegetables, or in the focaccia.
Ingredients
All spices dried, not ground please
- 1 T Savory Summer, if you can find it
- 1 T Marjoram
- 1 T Rosemary
- 1 T Thyme
- 2 t Oregano
- 2 t Lavender flowers
- 1 t Basil
Instructions
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Mix all herbs together and store in a sealable jar, in a cupboard, away from heat.
Recipe Notes
Increase, decrease, omit or add as you prefer. The mix was invented in the 1970s but has never been codified as to the exact amounts.
Breakfast is a great time to add lavender to treats. Lavender scones are a great way to start your morning.
Lavender Lemon Scones
Scones are a great treat for any weekend breakfast. Measure all the ingredients the night before for fast mixing the next morning.
Ingredients
Scones
- 10.5 oz All Purpose flour (296 g / 2 C)
- 2 oz Granulated sugar 57 g / .25 C
- 1 t Baking powder
- 1 t Baking soda
- 4 oz Cold, unsalted butter, diced 1/2 inch cubes 114 g / .5 C
- 2 each Lemons, zested
- 3 T Lemon juice, strained of seeds (use the zested lemons)
- 2 T Dried lavender flowers
- 2 T Poppy seeds optional
- 1 Lg Egg Beaten to break yolk
- 2 oz Milk (57 g / .25 C) Mix the egg and milk together
For the top of the scones before baking
- 1 oz Melted butter
- 2 T Lavender sugar
Glaze
- 1 C Confectioner's sugar
- 2 T Lemon juice, strained of seeds (from tested lemons) (1 oz / 30 ml)
Instructions
-
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
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Place a silicone baking mat or parchment paper on a half sheet pan. Prepare a place on the counter, with a small bowl of flour, on which to roll and cut the scones
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Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add the cold butter cubes, the poppy seeds and lemon zest.
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With a pastry blade or your fingers, work the flour into the dough by pressing with the blade or squeezing the butter and flour in between your fingers. The butter should become crumbly in the flour.
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Add the lavender flours, 3 T of lemon juice, milk and egg mixture and move your fingers in the liquid toward the edge of the bowl to incorporate all the dry ingredients. This will make a clump of dough on your fingers. Keep working until all the flour is incorporated.
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Place the dough onto the prepared space. Remove as much of the scone dough from your fingers as you can and press it onto the mound. Press the mound to just become flat. Dust the top of the dough with flour, gently invert it, dust again and roll it to approximately 1 inch thick. It will be as wide as it gets for that thickness.
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Cut the scones as you cut a pie: triangles. Brush each scone with the melted butter and sprinkle on the lavender sugar. Place each scone on the prepared sheet pan and bake 18-20 minutes or until they are nicely golden brown. If the brown unevenly, rotate the pan and continue baking. When they are done, remove to a cooling rack and wait. Wait wait wait. While you wait, make the glaze.
Make the glaze
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Place the confectioner's sugar into a bowl, add 1 T of lemon juice and whisk. Add just enough additional lemon juice to form a thick glaze which you can drizzle onto the scones with the end of the whisk or a dinner fork.
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Enjoy. But, you knew that part.
Can I Grow Some?
Lavender has some preferences for soil and mulch: dry, low pH and a bit rocky and no mulch. Lavender roots can rot quickly from too much moisture. If you have a nursery near you, check with them to determine if lavender can grow outdoors for you. You certainly can keep one in a pot, but again, check with people who know.
What Else Can I Make?
Amy Jeanroy at “The Spruce” blog makes a lavender balm with essential oil for sores and bug bites and general boo-boos on her kids. She offers this tip, “Keep a bottle of lavender water in the refrigerator for a cooling remedy for scrapes and bruises, overheated bodies and emotions. It is a universal answer to many of your kid’s little frustrations.” I asked a friend who is knowledgeable about herbs for healing and she suggested 1 ounce of lavender flowers to a pint of water and let it steep 24 hours. Place the flowers in a tea ball to find them later.
This is a recipe for Strawberry Lavender salsa, submitted to me in a Facebook group by Beatriz Carceres. Thanks, Beatriz, for the idea.
1 lb strawberries, you may cut them or leave them whole -I left them this way.
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp lavender [flowers].
Cook everything at medium heat until the sugar has melted and a medium syrup is formed. Cool.
Believe me, the smell will fill the air around and beyond the kitchen, and the taste will mesmerize you
[1] http://www.lavendersense.com/index.php/Lavender/Index
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavandula
[3] ibid.
