Bake Along #15 – Honey Almond Cake

This week I’m baking for both Bake Along #15 and for HBG‘s MasterChef Monday. I wanted to bake something very interesting and I narrowed down the category to healthy bakes. While I was brain storming, 2 precious recipe books whose copies I have, year dated 1979 and 1990. As I really don’t have any traditional recipes that have come down from generations I wanted to hunt from those treasure books and a bake without sugar fascinated me. And there comes our ‘Honey Cake’.

There is no sugar in the recipe. Butter and honey are beaten up first and you will be excited to see how the final batter is – all without sugar in it. You will also be tempted to peep in the oven few times in between to see if its really coming out well :P. Believe me the texture is amazingly soft and airy. I have added cinnamon powder and zest of sweet lime for flavors and that really made all the difference to the cake. For a sweet tooth like me, I would like some honey glaze on top. I was in such hurry to cut it up and bite into it, but am going to make the glaze for all the wedges which are already cut. I’m going to include the glaze recipe as well, so make your cakes, glaze it up and then indulge!

Ingredients:

Unsalted Butter – 1/4 cup
Honey – 1 cup / 300 gms
Egg – 1
Pure vanilla extract – 1/2 teaspoon
All-purpose flflour – 2 1/2 cups
Baking powder – 2 teaspoons
Baking soda – 1/2 teaspoon
Salt – 1/4 teaspoon
Cinnamon powder – 1/2 teaspoon
Orange/lemon zest – 1 teaspoon
Milk – 3/4 cups
Almonds – 1/2 cup, chopped into pieces and few for decorating on top

For Glaze:

Unsalted butter – 1/2 cup
Honey – 1/2 cup
Cinnamon powder – 1/4 teaspoon
Orange/Lemon zest – 1/2 teaspoon

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 160 degree C. Butter, flour and line up a nine inch round pan with butter paper. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon powder and zest of orange/lemon.

2. Add butter and honey into a large bowl and beat on high using your electric beater for about 5 minutes until the mixture is pale and thick.

3. Now add the egg and beat for one minute on medium high speed and then add vanilla extract and beat until combined.

4. Add the flour mixture in 3 parts and milk in 2 parts alternating both, starting and ending with flour mixture. Beat after each addition until the portions are just combined. Do not over beat.

5. Now add the chopped almonds and using your spatula fold it in until it has combined well.

6. Transfer batter into the prepared cake pan and smooth the top. Decorate with whole almonds and bake in pre- heated oven at 160 degree C for about 30 to 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

For the glaze:

Add honey, butter, cinnamon powder and zest of orange/lemon in a heavy bottomed sauce pan and put on stove top and bring it to boil on high flame. Once it starts boiling/bubbling, reduce flame to medium and let boil for one minute and switch off stove. Give it a stir and pour it hot over the cooled cake. Let it rest until the glaze has cooled down to room temperate and they are ready to be served!

For Variations:

Add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips in addition to the recipe
In place of chopped almonds, grind the almonds and add almond meal to avoid any texture in the cake.
Replace almonds with any nuts of your choice – cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts etc or even combination of all nuts.
Cut down cinnamon powder and add 2 teaspoons of instant coffee powder for coffee flavored cake.
Add any dried fruit of your choice – prunes, apricots, dates, figs, raisins, black currants – Soak 1/2 cup of the
chopped dried fruits in 1/4 cup of hot black tea for half an hour and add them to the final batter.
Add 1/2 cup of blueberries to the final batter.And the list goes on, go creative!

This has been baked for Fondbites, Bake Along,a group of enthusiastic bakers, bake one recipe every week along with me. To join the group, send a join request in the facebook group and I will send you a confirmation message, after you confirm that you will bake every recipe with me each week, I will add you to the group..

Recipes of previous Bake Along can be viewed here

Members – Once after you finish baking, post the link of your finished picture below using the linky tool.