Provincial Lavender and Honey Cake

Below is a honey and lavender bundt I prepared for my children. They are dairy and gluten intolerant, so I have made accordingly – it would possibly taste better with softened butter to replace the oil, cows' milk, and a light country wheat flour to replace my gluten free mix. It's a recipe following my post on cooking with lavender, and its multitude of culinary uses.

Don't you love a little Provincial inspiration?

Ingredients 

• 4 cups (Schar Patisserie) gluten free flour 
• 8 tsp gluten free baking powder 
• ¾ cup rice milk 
• ¾ cup canola (rapeseed) oil 
• 1 tsp salt 
• ½ tsp vanilla 
• 1 cup honey 
• 3 eggs 
• 2 tsp lavender buds (or 3-4 full flowers) 

Roasted Honey Pumpkin

It's amazing how many of my my greater achivements in the kitchen have come from a desire to get good food into the mouths of my children. Mother is the necessity of invention, they say, and it is so true. 

I love pumpkin. Soups, curries, roasted, scones, pie - all are great. But my children hate it. So to make them like it, I partner it with something I know they love, and I make sure they are in the kitchen helping me, so they can see the honey going in. This is the easiest way to cook delicious pumpkin - prep is less than 5 minutes, and the rest of the work is done by the oven.

Saffron and Honey Breakfast Cake

Friday morning is the start of the weekend in this part of the world. It is the holy day, and so we rest on Fridays and Saturdays. I am still getting used to the whole 'work' routine on Sundays, but something I have settled into quite nicely is pancake morning on Fridays. It's an institution. 

But this week, Friday came at the end of holidays where we had worn our Friday institution out a little - when you have something every day, it is no longer a novelty. And so, to mark the special day, I really had to pull one out of the hat. So, with my new-found confidence in baking, I decided to make cake. I figured if it was shallow, then it would cook quickly, so this is what I came up with.

Slap-Dash Biryani in the rice cooker

I have always loved Biryani. I suppose it comes from all my childhood memories of cinnamon, and of course where it was used - apple pie, with sugar on pancakes, mixed into Mum's banana custard - all wonderfully sweet and heart-warming dishes. So now the use of it is always associated with comforting, warm moments - and I am doing my best to add it to my own children's sensory memories.

True Biryani is made by pan-frying a spice, onion and meat mix, then adding to par-cooked rice and finally baking the lot in an oven. All this takes about 2 1/2 hours. In these days of gadgets, I make mine in (gasp!) a rice cooker. I cook the meat seperately, because I like to keep it browned and crispy, and although you could serve this spiced rice with anything, from barbecued lamb kebabs to garlic tiger prawns or even on it's own, I like it with chicken.