Honey Cake

It's dark when I wake up now.  The chain coffee joints have pushed their pumpkin line up to center stage.  The campus has swelled with students, making going to the gym, riding public transportation, and walking down the sidewalk just that much harder.  It's hard to deny it's fall.

The most sure sign of fall for me, though, is two days spent at synagogue, hearing the shofar sound, dipping apples in honey, and ringing in a new year.  In high school, I though the end of such things could not come soon enough.  As soon as I was able to make the choice for myself, I was not going to sit through those long, boring services.  Then I became an adult, and I couldn't bring myself to pass through September without acknowledging the holiday.  I craved the comfort of tradition.  Now, I willingly sit in a full sanctuary and cloak myself in the sounds of ancient words, letting familiar melodies roll over and through me.  The sound of the shofar calls me home.

 Even if services didn't do it for me, it was impossible not to get excited for my mother's honey cake.  We ring in the new year with sweet flavors to ensure a sweet new year.  Honey is the sweetener of choice, reminiscent of Israel, a land flowing with milk and honey.  We dip our apples, our challah, our fingers into it, and we bake it into these sweet cakes.  This cake brings meaning to the words "so sweet your teeth hurt".  With a whopping three cups of sweetener - honey, white sugar, and brown sugar - we're not taking any chances about the outcome of next year.  But it's also so good you can't stop at just one slice.

 

Honey Cake
Makes 2 loaf cakes

3 1/2 c flour
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
6 t cinnamon
1 t ground cloves
1 t ground allspice
1 c vegetable oil
1 c honey
1 1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
3 egs
1 c strong tea
1/2 c orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two loaf pans.  You can also use a cake pan or square baking dish, but watch your baking times.

Whisk dry ingredients (flour through allspice) together.  Make a well in the middle, and add everything else.  Add your oil before your honey, so that the honey won't stick to the measuring cup.

Whisk everything together into a thick batter.  Split evenly between the two pans.  Place on a baking sheet (to properly bake the bottom of the cake faster than the top and middle), and bake in the oven until cake tests done.  This took me about an hour, but check from 45 minutes on.

Pro tip: Toast a slice of the cake the next morning, and slather with butter, cream cheese, or peanut butter (or drizzle with even more honey if you're feeling crazy).