Tag: honey cake

Baroness’ Sinful Honey Cake

Cakes Desserts Festivals Fruit Holidays Rosh Hashana Baroness Tapuzina

Rosh Hashana Table 122

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is a holiday for starting anew. So for this year’s holiday I decided to create my own signature honey cake, something special to welcome the new promise of a sweet year to come. What would be better than to take a honey cake and top it with thinly sliced apples that were poached in white wine, and top it with a luscious 72% dark chocolate glaze. Actually, it is so delicious as to be positively sinful. Fortunately, we have just over a week to enjoy it, confident in the knowledge that on Yom Kippur we will be able to atone for this sin.

This year, as in every year, we celebrated Rosh Hashana with family and friends in Jerusalem. We thought of loved ones we missed, we laughed , and we thought of all of the things we want to do to make this year more sweet, more healthy, more prosperous, and most importantly more peaceful.

May you be inscribed in the Book of Life and we hope you have happy, healthy, prosperous, and peaceful new year.

We would also like to wish Eid Mubarak to all of our Muslim friends.

Chag Sameach,

Baroness Tapuzina and Mr BT

Apple and Honey Cake 120

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Baroness' Sinful Honey Cake
Ingredients
For the poached apples:
  • 3 medium granny smith apples peeled and cored
  • 1/2 bottle Riesling white wine
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 5 whole cloves
  • 2 large pieces of orange peel
  • 1 sheet of parchment paper
For the honey cake:
  • 1/2 cup dried sugarless cranberries
  • 1/4 cup candied orange peel
  • 1/2 cup walnuts chopped
  • 800 g 6 cups + 3 tablespoons spelt whole grain flour or all-purpose flour
  • 1-1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 2 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon cloves
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon allspice
  • 1-1/2 cups honey
  • 1 cup oil
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons instant espresso coffee
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 2 level teaspoons baking soda
  • Zest of two medium oranges
For the chocolate glaze:
  • 200 g 7oz 72% premium dark chocolate
  • 50 g 3.5 tablespoons butter or margarine
Instructions
For the poached apples:
  1. Place the apples in a medium size pan and add the spices and orange peel. Cover with the white white and place the parchment paper on top of the apples. Poach on medium heat and reduce the heat to a simmer. Poach the apples for 15 minutes or until they are tender, but not mushy. Remove from the poaching liquid, put them in a covered container and refrigerate until cold. This can be done the day before baking.
For the cake:
  1. Preheat the oven to 170C (325F). Grease a 22cm (8-inch) round spring-form pan and a loaf pan.
  2. Place the cranberries, orange peel, and walnuts in a food processor and grind until each ingredient is in fine pieces. Be careful not to grind it into a paste. Set aside.
  3. Mix the flour, sugar, and spices in a bowl. Add the honey, oil and eggs, and whisk into a smooth batter. Dissolve the coffee into 1 cup of boiling water. Add the baking soda to the batter, and then add the coffee. Gently fold in the orange rind, and the cranberry, candied orange and walnut mixture.
  4. Pour half of the batter into round pan and the other half into the loaf pan. Bake for approximately 45 minutes until the cake is dark brown and the toothpick is clean with a few crumbs adhering. Depending on your oven, you may have to bake your cakes for an additional 10-15 minutes.
  5. Cool in the pan until completely cooled. The cake a be prepared up to two days ahead.
For the chocolate glaze:
  1. Just before assembling the cake, melt the chocolate over a water on low heat and add the butter or margarine. Cool for 5 minutes.
For assembly:
  1. Slice the apples into thin slices and place on top of the round cake. Place the chocolate glaze in the middle of the cake and spread to the edges of the top of the cake. Let chocolate glaze will thicken as it cools.

Not my Grandmother’s Honey Cake

Cakes Holidays Rosh Hashana Baroness Tapuzina

We didn’t have a Rosh Hashana tradition of making honey cakes in my house. I didn’t even know there was a tradition to serve honey cake during this holiday. We made Honigkuchen, which were basically lebkuchen, a type of spice cookie that we always made for Hannukah. My grandmother always made Noodle Schalet (Noodle Pudding, not Kugel, with eggs, lemon zest and raisins) with lemon sauce for dessert. We had Suesse Apfel (carmelised apple slices in honey) as a side dish with roast beef.

So when I moved to Israel, people started asking me what does your mother put in her honey cake? Does she put nuts in, coffee or tea, schnapps, only cinnamon? I had no idea what they were talking about. All of the supermarkets and bakeries were selling different types of honey cakes. The few times I had them in the States, I always remembering them being dry and inedible. I made my first honey cake a few years ago and I could have built a house with it. It was heavy and dry. Then, I made the Beekeeper’s Honey Cake and it was less dry.

I finally decided which cake I am going to make for Erev Rosh Hashana, the Magical Honey Cake. As most of my regular readers know, I usually have to tweak a recipe and this time was no different. I used Janna Gur’s recipe as a base and added a few more spices, some orange rind, and substituted cranberries soaked in rum for the raisins. I cheated and tasted one of the cakes on the second day, it is moist, spicy and bursting with flavour from the honey. This is going to be my tried and true honey cake from now on.

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Magical Honey Cake
Adapted from The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey by Janna Gur
Servings: 3 loaves
Ingredients
  • 6 cups + 3 tablespoons flour
  • 1-1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon cardamom
  • 1 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon cloves
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
  • 1-1/2 cups honey
  • 1 cup oil
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons instant espresso coffee
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 2 level teaspoons baking soda
  • Zest of two medium oranges
  • 1/3 cup dried cranberries soaked in rum just to cover
  • 1/2 cup walnuts chopped
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 170C (325F). Grease the loaf pans.
  2. Dry Ingredients
  3. Mix the flour, sugar, and spices in a bowl. Add the honey, oil and eggs, and whisk into a smooth batter. Dissolve the coffee into 1 cup of boiling water. Add the baking soda to the batter, and then add the coffee. Gently fold in the orange rind, cranberries and rum, and the walnuts.
  4. Honey Cake Batter
  5. Pour the batter into the greased loaf pans and bake for approximately 45 minutes until the cake is dark brown and the toothpick is clean with a few crumbs adhering.
  6. Cool the cakes completely and wrap with aluminum foil. Place in a cool, dry place to mature for 7 days.