A Honey of a Honey Cake

I'm back! After a really long hiatus (insert life-got-in-the-way excuses here), I'm thrilled to present the easiest, most delicious honey cake ever. And just in time for Rosh Hashanah. Honey cake, the traditional holiday dessert to symbolize a sweet new year, has a deservedly bad reputation. It's often dry and dense. Even my grandmother's version was nearly inedible without a gallon of milk to wash it down.  And she was a fabulous baker. 

This recipe, however, is a winner.  It is one of hundreds of recipes gifted to me a few years ago by the legendary Arthur Schwartz, and was sent to him by a listener who wrote: Now this is a honey cake! He'd given me a number of honey cake recipes, but I chose this one for its utter simplicity.




Start by beating the eggs and sugar until very, very light.  Add in the honey and oil, then alternate adding the flour mixture and coffee. Begin and end with the dry ingredients.



The batter is very thin. Pour into a greased loaf pan.  I just sprayed mine with Pam. It released pretty well, except for one small spot which, after I "repaired" it, was unnoticeable.  You could line the greased pan with parchment if you want to ensure a complete release.



Bake for about an hour. The edges will look a bit well done, but test with a skewer to ensure the center is cooked.



Let it cool, then slice and serve. It's even better the second day!



Some of my tasters, Cheryl and Alex. Baby Stellan is too young to enjoy the cake, though he's trying to grab it! Cheryl declared he cake moist and delicious and Alex finished off the loaf. The DH especially enjoyed the caramelized edges.



The recipe, below. I followed it exactly. The nuts I used were blanched slivered almonds, a tribute to my grandmother who always decorated her cake with whole almonds across the top of the loaf, like buttons running the length of the cake.

Hamantashen

It's Purim and time to make the hamantashen, filled cookies designed to symbolize the defeat of Haman, an enemy of the Jewish people. They appear in bakery cases all over NYC this time of year, and are beloved by tribe members and others. And homemade ones abound -- people who rarely bake the rest of the year are known for making these triangular treats.

So I made them, using a c. 1960s recipe in the Temple Israel (of Akron) Synagogue Sisterhood Cook Book. 

Dear readers, I will probably never make them again. The dough was difficult to work with and the process was rather tedious. Everyone who tried them loved the cookies, though, so there was that. And the dough is rich and delicious.

So for those of you interested, hang on to your three-pointed hats and let's get started. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl. I misread the instructions and did not beat the egg yolks with the sour cream first, but it didn't seem to matter in the end. And I saved a step.

Mix until it forms a dough.

Form the dough into a couple of spheres and refrigerate until firm, usually an hour or two.

Roll out on parchment paper or a lightly floured surface. I sandwiched the dough between to sheets of parchment. Using a 2.5 or 3-inch cookie cutter, make the circles.  At this point, I refrigerated the sheets of cutouts to firm up again.

There are many fillings for these cookies. I used prune lekvar because I happened to see it while shopping at Pomegranate, an upscale Kosher restaurant in Brooklyn.

Place a teaspoon, or less, of filling in the center of each cookie.

There are many ways to create the triangle shape. At first, I used the old-fashioned one, below, of pinching the sides together.

Brush the formed cookies with egg white before baking.

But my first batch was a fail. See how many opened up?

But then I discovered a webpage on how to make them perfect. You can see it here. In the tutorial, Tori Avery demonstrates a folding technique. You can see how much better my second batch looked following those instructions.  (There was no third batch, as I ate the dough raw for dinner!)

Production notes: I halved this recipe, using only butter and not Crisco, and followed it exactly save for mixing the sour cream and egg yolks together first. I brushed the tops with egg white before baking. Each batch took about 12 to 15 minutes. (Eleanor Applebaum was the rabbi's wife at Temple Israel, and an editor of this cookbook.)