Honey Cardamom Pound Cake

|Friday Baking Project|Friday Blog, Holiday Desserts

09/06/2023

Honey holds a significant place as one of the main food symbols of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, signifying the hope for a sweet new year. This is why honey cake is a traditional dessert during the holiday season. Yet, the honey cake that many of us remember from our childhood wasn’t always a culinary delight; often, it was heavy and excessively sweet. This explains why my tasting group was so pleasantly surprised when they had the opportunity to savor this absolutely delicious cake.

This Honey Cardamom Pound Cake has a subtle, delicate honey flavor that balances out beautifully with the cardamom. The cake is moist and slices beautifully allowing for thin slices that go very nicely with fresh berries, whipped cream or roasted early fall fruits. Or keep it simple, and serve as is.

For a non-dairy version of the cake, the recipe contains directions on substituting vegetable oil for the butter.

The recipe is from the outstanding book Modern Jewish Cuisine by Leah Konig, who was kind enough to grant permission for its use. The book features recipes that celebrate the essence of Jewish cuisine from Eastern Europe, Spain and Portugal, and the Middle East. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in fine cooking and baking.

The procedure for Honey Cardamom Pound Cake is a perfect time to use your kitchen scale as it simplifies the process of measuring the honey as opposed to using a ¼ cup measuring cup, and there is less cleanup. Place the mixing bowl with the butter on your scale, tare to zero, add 7 oz of sugar, tare to zero again, and add 2.9 oz of honey. See the picture after the recipe for an example of this.

Whether you’re celebrating Rosh Hashana or not, you should try this Honey Cardamom Pound Cake. It’s a simple, creaming method cake that you will love.

Honey Cardamom Pound Cake

Yield: 9″ loaf

# of Servings: 8

Method: Creaming

Ingredients

1 ½ cup (6.85 oz / 194 g) cake flour, sifted
½ tsp (.05 oz / 2 g) baking powder
½ tsp, scant (.05 oz / 2 g) salt
1 tsp ground cardamom

16 tbl (8 oz / 227 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (7 oz / 198 g) sugar
¼ cup (2.90 oz / 82 g) honey

4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup (2 fl oz) fresh orange juice
For Dairy-free:
½ cup (4 fl oz) canola oil

Optional accompaniments:

¾ cup heavy cream
¾ cup crÃ¨me fr¢iche
3 tbl confectioners’ sugar sifted

Assorted fresh berries

Roasted early fall fruits, such as plums or pears

Special equipment needed:

9″ by 5″ by 2.65″, 6-cup capacity loaf pan
Parchment paper – cut to fit in the bottom of the loaf pan
Hand held or counter-top mixer with whisk attachment

Pre-recipe preparations:

Preheat oven to 325 °F
Butter the loaf pan, place the parchment rectangle on the bottom and butter it as well.
Squeeze 1 or 2 oranges for the ¼ cup orange juice
Let butter come to room temperature

Directions:

Stir together the dry ingredients, set aside.
Cream the butter, sugar, and honey until light and fluffy, about 4 to 5 minutes.
If using vegetable oil, whisk the oil, sugar, and honey until combined, about 1 minute. The mixture may look grainy until the eggs are added.
Mix the eggs and vanilla extract together.
Add the eggs in four stages to the butter mixture, allowing each addition to be thoroughly incorporated before adding the next.
Add the dry ingredients in three stages, alternately with the orange juice in two stages, beginning and ending with the dry. Use a plastic spatula to scrape up from the bottom to ensure a well-blended batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
Bake just until the middle feels firm to the touch and a cake tester comes out clean, approximately 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool for 3 minutes.
Carefully remove the cake from and place on cooling rack until thoroughly cool. This, like most pound cakes, is best after they have sat for several hours or overnight.
Slice and serve with fresh berries, whipped cream, roasted early fall fruits, or by itself.