Most honey cake recipes call for honey and sugar. Look at the ones at the top of a Google search, and you'll find brown sugar or granulated sugar sitting right next to the honey.
This one uses a cup of raw wildflower honey and no refined sugar at all. You can taste the honey, which gives it a richer, floral flavor and the benefits of a natural sweetener. It also creates a moister cake that holds up longer.Â
YIELD: One 9-inch cake, about 10 slices
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan
1 cup raw wildflower honey, crystallized or liquid
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup full-fat plain or Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
Honey chocolate sauce
2 tablespoons wildflower honey
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon whole or 2% milk, plus more as needed
Small pinch of salt
DIRECTIONS Heat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan or cast-iron skillet and line the bottom with parchment.
Gently warm the butter and honey in a saucepan until melted. Cool until just warm to the touch. If your honey is crystallized it will melt smooth here, so there's no need to soften it first.
Mix in the eggs one at a time, followed by the yogurt and vanilla. Use room-temperature eggs. Cold ones hit the warm honey and butter and seize the mixture into lumps.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Fold into the wet ingredients just until the dry streaks disappear. Stop there. Overworked batter gives you a tight, rubbery crumb.
Pour into the pan and bake 40 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Honey browns faster than sugar, so the top will color early. If it's getting dark before the center sets, lay foil loosely over the pan for the last ten minutes.
Cool in the pan 15 minutes, then turn out, peel off the parchment, and cool completely.
Stir the sauce ingredients together until smooth, adding milk a few drops at a time if it needs loosening. Drizzle over sliced cake, or serve with cream-top yogurt or ice cream.
Why there's no sugar in it
Honey is sweeter than granulated sugar by weight, so a cup carries the whole cake on its own. It also holds onto moisture, which is why this one is still soft on day three when a plain butter cake would be dry.
The tradeoff is browning, and that's the only thing to watch.Â
Which honey to use
Raw wildflower honey is a great pick here. It has enough flavor to carry a dessert without taking it over, and it shifts a little season to season depending on what the bees worked.
Ours is blended across our own hives in New York and Massachusetts. Nothing from outside those hives goes in the jar, and nothing gets added to it.
For a darker, more assertive cake, swap in knotweed honey. It's deep reddish-brown with a richer, almost malty flavor, and it pushes the cake closer to a spice cake.
Honey cake at Rosh Hashanah
Honey cake has a long place at the Rosh Hashanah table. The traditional version is lekach, an oil-based cake, usually spiced and often made with coffee or strong tea.
This is a different cake. Butter and yogurt give it a tangier, plainer crumb with none of the warm spice. It also isn't parve, so it won't work after a meat meal.
Tips
Weigh the flour if you can. Two cups can vary by close to an ounce depending on how you scoop, and that's enough to dry the cake out.
Cast iron works well. It holds heat evenly and crisps the edge. Add a few minutes to the bake.
Cool it completely before saucing. Warm cake soaks the sauce up instead of holding it on top.
Storage
Covered at room temperature it keeps four days, and it's better on day two once the honey has pulled in more moisture. The fridge dries it out faster, so skip that unless your kitchen is warm.
It freezes wrapped tight for up to three months. Make the sauce fresh when you serve it.
Questions
Can I use crystallized honey? Yes. It melts smooth with the butter. Crystallizing is what raw, unfiltered honey does, and it has no effect on the cake.
Can I substitute honey for sugar in any cake recipe? Not directly. Honey adds liquid and browns faster, so a straight swap usually needs less other liquid and a lower oven. This recipe was built around honey from the start.
Why did the top come out so dark? Honey browns faster than sugar. Tent the pan with foil for the last ten minutes and judge doneness with a toothpick instead of by color.
Can I make it dairy-free? Swap the butter for a neutral oil and the yogurt for a plain unsweetened plant yogurt. The crumb will come out slightly denser.
