I have never had a Rosh Hashanah with honey cake. Yes, you read that right. I never ate or served a honey cake during the new year. So why am I sharing this recipe with you? Well, for one, I wanted to try it out. There’s a first time for everything, right? And the second was I was racking my brain trying to think of a honey recipe to share for our Rosh Hashanah linkup. And then I thought to myself, “duh, can’t go wrong with a classic holiday recipe!”
We just shared a delicious chicken and pomegranate recipe, and shared some traditional Syrian recipes, in the past as well. Now here’s a traditional Ashkenazi one, that we loved for many reasons, mainly because it made use of the angel food cake pan I have in my kitchen, but also because all these spices are delicious! And it’s inherently pareve. No margarine here. I also love whipping egg whites. Well, My Kitchen Aid mixer loves doing it for me.
It looks like there are a ton of ingredients here, but they’re mostly spices. Don’t fret.
Honey Chiffon Spice Cake, adapted from the Second Avenue Deli Cookbook:
Serves 8 (if it’s the only dessert and there wasn’t enough dinner)
Ingredients:
- 7 eggs, separated
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 cup hot coffee
- 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 cups sifted all purpose flour (that means you sift and then measure)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup sunflower (or other neutral) oil
- Powdered sugar, for dusting
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat egg yolks with honey.
3. Slowly beat in the hot coffee, then the brown sugar. Let sit for 5 minutes to allow the mixture to cool.
4. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside.
5. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form (this is where having 2 kitchen aid bowl come in handy). Gradually beat in the granulated sugar and continue beating until the egg whites are stiff and form stiff peaks.
6. Make a well in the flour mixture.
5. Pour in the egg yolks and oil. Whisk until smooth.
6. Fold in 1/4 of the egg whites, just to lighten the batter.
7. Turn this batter over the rest of the egg whites and gently fold in, until there’s no more white showing.
8. Pour batter into an ungreased 10-inch angel food cake pan, and place pan on top of a cookie sheet.
9. Bake for 50 minutes, then turn up the heat to 350 degrees and bake another 10 minutes.
10. Invert pan onto a rack to cool.
11. When cook, remove from pan and dust with powdered sugar to serve.
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