Have some cake, honey

Yesterday’s post-prandial dialogue:

Son:  What’s for dessert?

Me:  There is honey cake.

Son: The same cake as we’ve had for the past 5 days?!  When will that cake go away?

Husband: Hey, that cake lasted for 40 years while our people were wandering around in the desert.

* * * * *

On Rosh Hashanah it is traditional to have honey cake.  It is meant to go along with wishes for a sweet new year.  I researched honey cake recipes extensively, and found that 78.4% of all honey cake recipes include coffee as an ingredient.  The coffee bitterness would automatically cancel out the honey sweetness, thereby disqualifying it as a recipe I want to make. And what would such a cake say about our New Year wishes – have a bittersweet year?

I guess if I were actually Jewish, I would not have a problem breaking with tradition entirely, and serving, maybe, dirt pudding.  The sentiment there could be, “Have a dirty year!”

This year for Rosh Hashanah I tried a recipe for orange honey cake that I found on the internet. I thought this orange cake was pretty good, although I disobeyed the recipe  by using 2 8x8 pans, and then overbaked it.  Fortunately for me, the Day of Atonement for Baking Disobedience and Other Sins is upon us.

I added a lemon glaze to one of my cakes, and that rendered the cake very tasty indeed, for those of us who like lemon.  But that does not include the Common Household Children.  They will have to wait until 5773 for me to try a new recipe.

Below are the recipe and photos of the honey cakes and a few other Rosh Hashanah traditional foods.  Happy 5772!  

Honey cakes!

Apples 'n' honey!

It just wouldn't be a Jewish holiday without Manischewitz wine!

Honey Cake

By Int R. Net

Prep Time        20 Min                       Cook Time       45 Min

Ready in           1 Hr 10 Min               Original recipe yield 1 - 9x13 inch pan

12 Servings

Ingredients

1 cup white sugar

1 cup honey

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

1 cup orange juice

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, honey, oil, eggs and orange zest. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the orange juice, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

The glaze I added was simply this:

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

½ cup lemon juice

Mix together.  With a fork, poke holes in the cake about every 1 to 2 inches.  Spoon the glaze over the cake, letting it soak into the cake.