Lemon Balm Cake

This cake is a variation on a chamomile cake recipe from Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I have tried with both chamomile and lemon balm, as we have both in our garden, but I think the lemon balm version is actually better. Also lemon balm, like all members of the mint family, grows like crazy, so I always seem to have some on hand. Lemon balm also has a bunch of other uses if you still have some left over. You can pick bunches at a time and hang them upside down to dry. Once dry, remove leaves and store in a air tight jar.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of self raising flour
pinch of salt
1/8 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 cup of lemon balm leaves, dried and crushed
125 g butter
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 free range eggs
125g tub light sour cream

icing sugar for dusting

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 160°C (320°F).

Sift flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl. Add the dried crushed lemon balm leaves to the mix. I crush these in the spice mill attachment of my food processor, but you can do by hand if you like.

Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add vanilla, and the 3 free range eggs, one at a time. Add this mixture, and the sour cream to the dry ingredients and fold together.

Put cake mixture into a greased cake pan and bake to 1 hour or until cake springs back when touched.

Allow to cool and dust with icing sugar before serving.

What the kids can do:

Hand washing: Don’t forget to get the kids to wash their hands before you start. Little hands always seem to end up touching everything, including the ingredients.

Eggs: Pro tip for breaking eggs with a 4 year old, break eggs into a separate glass bowl before adding to your other ingredients. That way you can see and pick out any bits of shell before they are added in by mistake. I like to use free range eggs, because it is kinder to the chickens, and they also taste better. Bear in mind that raw eggs can carry Salmonella so wash little hands if they end up the raw egg.

Mixing the ingredients: My daughter (age 4) likes to add the ingredients to the food processor. Bear in mind that little hands can fit down the shoot of the food processor, so always supervise this step. The biggest messes seen to happen when sifting and mixing dry ingredients with the kids. There is not really any way around this, so just be ready to clean up afterwards. When fold wet into dry ingredients, you want to mix thoroughly, but not too much or the cakes will go flat, this usually requires the grown up to either finish off the mixing and/or intervene before mixed too much.

Sprinking with icing sugar: Put a bit of icing sugar in a sieve, and let the kids sprinkle the top of the cake with icing sugar. This doesn’t always go on evenly if a kid does it (as you can see from the sieve impression on top) but that adds to the fun.

This cake keep a few days at room temperature. I haven’t tried freezing it as it doesn’t tend to last that long, but it should work.