Man oh man, have I been a busy bee. Finishing up school for the semester, and still trying to find time to bake is definitely a challenge. Last weekend I made a point to make this fabulous lavender pumpkin bread, recommended by a good friend of mine. And I am so, so glad I followed her advice.

If you love lavender (and pumpkin) like I do, then you’ll definitely like this bread. It came out moist and very pumpkin-y, not too overpowered with a flowery fragrance. I ate almost an entire loaf and a half to myself over the course of a few mornings for breakfast, topped with some peanut butter. It would also be great with some cranberry cinnamon goat cheese. Lavender has been my culinary experiment over the past year, trying to incorporate it into as much as possible. Lavender salt on roasted vegetables, on top of the icing on chocolate cupcakes, mixed into soft cheeses, you name it. I eventually plan on infusing some olive oil with lavender. A local company makes lavender sugar and sells it at select grocery stores, and that is what I used for this particular recipe, but you can always add your own dried lavender to regular cane sugar. There are so many uses for lavender sugar! Lavender lemonade, lavender hot chocolate, lavender sugar cookies, lavender banana bread. I made some lavender hot chocolate this morning, with some pumpkin soymilk. It was heavenly! Here are some morelavender inspired recipes if you are so inclined… give it a try!

Lavender Pumpkin Bread from Little Sky Lavender

3 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup from whole wheat pastry flour)
2 cups Little Sky lavender sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 15-ounce canned pumpkin
(or about 2 cups homemade)
2/3 cup salad oil
3 eggs, slightly beaten

extra dried lavender

sugar crystals, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease well, two 9” by 5” loaf pans. In a large bowl, with fork, mix flour with next 5 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and mix just until blended. Pour batter into pans. Sprinkle some dried lavender and sugar crystals on top, for a really nice finish.

Bake about 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans and cool completely on racks. When cool, wrap each loaf and store at room temperature. Makes 2 loaves. (You can bake these in individual Bundt pans, as well. I personally used 3 disposable brown paper loaf pans and baked it a little less than an hour and they came out great. Awesome to give away as gifts, too!)