Sweet Visit From Ally’s Kitchen – Lavender & Almond Bessboussa

Well I made it home from Chicago late last night, so still getting settled in.  That is why I am excited to have sweet Ally from Ally’s Kitchen pop over to CafeTerra for a few days.  If you have not met Ally yet….Welllll you are sooooo missing out!!!

Just look at her picture on the home page of her site, the happiest person you will ever meet.  She has a love for life, and shares it with you everyday!  She is a yogi, which is near and dear to my heart.

I first met Ally on Facebook, she stopped by and said hi.  We immediately became friends, and now since she lives 3 hours from me, I can’t wait to met her.  A cool fact about sweet Ally, she beat out 38,000 hopefuls on Master Chef with Gordon Ramsay,  made the top 100 and was invited to Los Angeles.  That is seriously so fun!!!!!

Well since Ally is just getting settled in after a long trip, she wanted to just share a recipe I hope you enjoy as much as I did!  She posted this on her site a few weeks ago! Enjoy!

The best part of having a Facebook cooking page is meeting all the great foodies from around the world!  It’s like having my own virtual cooking kitchen at my fingertips…I mean I can just post that I need to know more about a particular ethnicity’s cuisine, and, within minutes I have comments and suggestions.  One of my dearest and sweetest foodies is Nanou who is from the UK.  She’s a young beautiful  Algerian, married to a handsome Italian, Stefano, and she is a great cook!

Nanou has shared with me so many ideas and suggestions from her native land, and I am so very grateful.  Just recently, Nanou sent me her recipe for ‘Bessboussa,’ and true to my Bohemian spirit and nature, I adjusted somewhat.  Instead of rose water, I decided to use lavender water, which I make from edible lavender.  This dried lavender comes from my foodie friend, Karen, at Crystallized Flower Company.  If you want to start cooking with flowers and want to experiment with edible flower decor, then look no further, Karen has it all, and, yes, she’s organic!

All in all, I maintained the integrity of Nanou’s recipe. Before I posted my version of her recipe, I sent her pictures and shared what I’d done to it…it met with her approval! Yay!! She said I had done her recipe proud! We both started doing the littl’ cheeekin dance! This cake is beyond fabulous! It’s not only beautiful, rather heavenly looking with the all white and the slightly contrasting sliced almonds.

(Original Recipe from Nanou Bip Bip from London, UK.  This is an Ally variation of the recipe.)

Makes one 9×13 pan

Preheat oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit

What you need:

2 cups rice flour

1 container Greek lemon yogurt (6oz)

1 1/4 cups plain Greek yogurt

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

4 tsp lavender or rose water

1 tsp pure (natural) lemon extract

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup sliced almonds

What you do:

Combine all ingredients except sliced almonds in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together gently and thoroughly. The batter will be relatively ‘thick’ like a pre-packaged spreadable icing.

Coat baking pan well with cooking spray. I used a tart pan (appx. 8×10), wrapped the bottom/sides with double foil and placed in a water bath to bake. This is not necessary. Place batter in baking dish and spread on top the sliced almonds. Gently pat down almonds with a spatula.

Bake about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out fairly clean. Let cool for about 30 minutes.

Serve with fresh berries, drizzle honey on it, or make a ‘Zing’ sauce (recipe available from Ally’s Kitchen). Nanou also recommended making rose or lavender water syrup (recipe available from Ally’s Kitchen.)

Thank you so much Ally for popping in and sharing such a lovely recipe with my sweet readers!  This Greek yogurt junkie is loving that you used two different flavors of Greek yogurt in your recipe!

You can follow Ally on Twitter and Facebook, stop by and say hi to her:-)

I said I need to try lavender, I believe this should be my first recipe I try, don’t you agree?

What is your favorite way to cook/bake with lavender?

Until next time, Come on in, Have a seat,

Hugs, Terra

Tagged as: Almond, Baking, Cake, Chobani Greek Yogurt, homemade, Lavender, Recipe