Cake with honey frosting
When the sun is shining, and you can hear the bees buzzing, what better to eat than a slice of honey cake. This cake is ever so slightly sweet, which is perfect for those sunny afternoons where you just want something light. And topped with a tangy but sweet cream cheese frosting, it is sure to be very moreish.
Nectar of the Gods
Honey, it’s golden, gooey and exquisitely sweet. In previous centuries people would either have to gather honey from wild beehives or keep their own bees. And with bees being able to sting whoever tried to harvest their honey, it was not without peril.
Even as far back as the mesolithic did humans already harvest honey from bees. Although back in those days it wasn’t as easy or peaceful to harvest honey. We had to rip open the hive to be able to access the honey. Essentially destroying the hive, and therefore significantly crippling the bee population.
Luckily, we now keep bees in beehives that can be easily opened without harming the bees or their larvae.
Buying your honey
Nowadays, we can buy honey in any supermarket without any danger of bees being able to sting us. Unfortunately, this convenience comes at a cost. Because to reduce the price of this wonderful superfood, honey is often mixed with sugar water. You can check your label and more often than not, it will say that your EU honey is mixed with non-EU honey. This means that short of doing your own lab test, you can’t be sure if what you have just bought is 100% honey.
So if at all possible, try to get your hands on local honey, ideally from a local beekeeper. Because raw honey is packed full of antioxidants and can even help with hay fever allergies.
Honey frosting
Because honey as a liquid will make your frosting too soft to keep its shape. We have to use something to stiffen up the frosting, like powdered sugar. But if we were to only use powdered sugar, the frosting would be clawingly sweet. So we use half powdered sugar and half cornflour, this way we have a subtle sweet frosting.
I hope you enjoy baking this cake and of course the eating of this cake. Let me know in the comments what type of honey you like to use.
Want to try another cake? Why not try my scrumptious date bread?
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Honey cake with cream cheese frosting
Ingredients
For the cake
- 225 gr plain flour
- 175 gr honey
- 125 gr butter soft
- 2 medium eggs
- 2 tsp baking powder
For the frosting
- 100 gr cream cheese
- 100 gr butter soft
- 75 gr honey
- 75 gr powdered sugar
- 75 gr cornflour
Instructions
For the cake
- Preheat the oven to 180 C
- In the first bowl, you combine and mix the flour and baking powder.
- In the second bowl, you add the soft butter and beat it with a mixer until pale and fluffy, then one at a time add the eggs.
- Once the eggs are incorporated, slowly drizzle in the honey while you continue mixing.
- Lastly, slowly fold in the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet ingredients.
- Pour the cake batter into a greased and floured cake tin. And bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
For the frosting
- In a small to medium bowl mix the powdered sugar and cornflour till it's lump free.
- Combine butter and cream cheese in a second bowl and use a mixer to get it light and fluffy.
- Gradually mix in the honey and your dry ingredients alternating between the two.
- Scoop your frosting into a piping bag. If it's too soft to pipe onto your cake, leave it in the fridge for 10 minutes or so to let the butter stiffen up a bit.
- Pipe the frosting onto your cooled cake.
