Lavender hot chocolate and honey cornbread: Kentucky farm offers culinary boxes
Who doesn’t love lavender? It’s great to tuck a sachet in your socks, or in a soothing bath salt soak.
But in your food?
Mary May and Allison Horseman, the mother-daughter duo behind Woodstock Lavender Co., say yes, go for it.
In the right recipes, Horseman said, “it takes them up a notch, makes them a little more fancy. It doesn’t make your food taste like flowers.”
She and her mother have been growing lavender in Pulaski County since 2013 and in the late 2000s they began selling food products and hosting popular teas that feature lavender in every dish. They have grown from 50 plants to over 1,000 plants.
The teas started as “refreshments” made by May to groups coming to tour and cut lavender.
“Any time we have groups, we always serve refreshments,” she said. Her lavender pound cake, lavender shortbread cookies, lavender tea and lavender lemonade were always surprise hits.
“Most people didn’t know you can cook with lavender. They didn’t know it was so good,” May said.
During the COVID pandemic they had to halt the teas, which they hope eventually to bring back.
So last year their Woodstock Lavender Co. launched a culinary subscription service called Purple Spoon to bring the goodies directly to fans at home.
“The idea behind the Purple Spoon subscription box was to let people know what we found out, that there are different ways of infusing lavender in regular recipes ... and it can be done quickly,” Horseman said.
The boxes, which started quarterly, are now available monthly in themed boxes that include a variety of items from Woodstock as well as other lavender growers and other Kentucky-based businesses.
A March box contained Weisenberger Mill cornbread mix and lavender honey from a female-owned farm in Texas with a recipe for making lavender cornbread.
There’s also a shaker of Woodstock’s Lavender & Rosemary Herbal Salt, which can be used with the honey and the cornmeal for another recipe, Lavender Honey Chicken. There’s a third recipe for Roasted Herb & Honey Sweet Potatoes that uses the honey and the herbal salt.
Horseman said the goal is to ease people out of their comfort zone.
“I think people are still intimidated by cooking with lavender, afraid it will be overpowering,” she said. “If they take a chance on trying something new, they will find we’ve made it easy, fun and really good.”
Other boxes have included lavender vanilla granola, lavender chocolates, strawberry lavender jam, lavender hot chocolate and lavender marshmallows, among other items.
The April box will feature Kentucky Derby-themed items, May will be a “taste of France with items from the lavender-growing Provence region, and June will spotlight the magical pairing of lavender and lemon.
For the June box, Horseman said, they are working with Kentucky chef Ouita Michel, who will include a ready-to-eat item.
Each box is $42, and can be picked up in Somerset or shipped anywhere for $7.25. Horseman said they have subscribers in five states so far. You can order online at woodstocklavender.com/subscribe.
The boxes also support other female entrepreneurs including artists and creators, too. And keep the lavender farm growing.
“We’ll probably never get to be a huge commercial lavender farm because the climate in Kentucky pretty much exactly what lavender hates: Too much rain and high humidity,” Horseman said. “So we will stay on the small scale.”
