While Zingerman's small honey cake sufficed to feed just a few people, I needed a bigger cake to bring to my office for Rosh Hashanah. I decided to try a Honey Walnut Cake recipe from Leite's Culinaria that was adapted from The Vineyard Kitchen.
The recipe is written to be baked in a 9-inch round pan but I doubled it and baked the cake in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan. Making the cake batter is straightforward. You beat room temperature butter with sugar and honey (I used a dark avocado blossom honey) until light and fluffy; add eggs, orange zest, and vanilla; and incorporate flour, baking powder, salt, and ground toasted walnuts. I spread the batter in my parchment-lined pan to bake.
The cake ended up with a dark golden brown, perfectly level top (with the exception of one little air bubble, which you can see at the front of the piece in the photo above). You're supposed to garnish the cake with honeyed walnut halves, but I skipped that step. The cake was fine; it was moist and had a soft, tender texture. But it was boring. I couldn't taste the ground walnuts and I think I would have preferred the cake with some chopped walnuts in the batter to both boost the flavor and add some textural contrast. The bit of orange flavor was nice, but other than that, this cake just wasn't all that interesting. There was nothing wrong with it, but I have to put it at the bottom of the list of honey cakes I've made.
Recipe: "Honey Walnut Cake" from Leite's Culinaria.
Previous Posts:
The recipe is written to be baked in a 9-inch round pan but I doubled it and baked the cake in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan. Making the cake batter is straightforward. You beat room temperature butter with sugar and honey (I used a dark avocado blossom honey) until light and fluffy; add eggs, orange zest, and vanilla; and incorporate flour, baking powder, salt, and ground toasted walnuts. I spread the batter in my parchment-lined pan to bake.
Recipe: "Honey Walnut Cake" from Leite's Culinaria.
Previous Posts:
- "An Adorably Cute and Sweet New Year: Zingerman's Honey Cake," November 7, 2019.
- "This Cake Is the Bee's Knees: Honey Cake," October 11, 2014.
- "A Delicious Start for a Sweet New Year: Majestic and Moist New Year's Honey Cake," September 8, 2010.
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