In case I haven’t made it clear how much I love nettles, I wanted to share this amazing recipe. While visiting my home town and home ground on the Olympic Peninsula, my amazing herbalist friend Ellen made this fantastic nettle cake. Since cake, nettles and good friends are some of my favorite things, this was a very exciting occasion. I had heard about Ellen making this cake last year, and felt very honored that she let me help her make it this time on my visit. She started with a recipe from the UK, and modified a few little things in keeping with the season. I will share both the link to the original recipe below and her slightly modified version.
Nettle and Lemon Cake With Lemon Icing and Blackberries
Ellen’s Good Green Earth Nettle Cake
Ingredients:
2 cups raw young nettle leaves
3/4 cups butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 lemon zest and juice
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Frosting Ingredients:
2/3 cups butter
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 lemon zest and juice
Topping:
Violets, Johnny-jump-ups, berries or other edible beauties
Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease two 8″ round cake pans. Boil nettles 3-10 minutes, puree and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in one egg at a time, then nettles, lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and stir in. Spoon batter into tins and bake 25 minutes. While cake cools, cream butter, powdered sugar and lemon zest and juice to make frosting. Frost and decorate cake once cool and enjoy with friends!
In addition to being an amazing cook, Ellen wildcrafts and sells dried nettle, elderberries and some amazing salves (the Douglas Fir salve is my favorite), and you can find them here in her Etsy shop:
Good Green Earth on Etsy
And you can follow her Facebook page for herbal wisdom and new products:
Good Green Earth on Facebook
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