Honey Cake with Honeyed Almond Crunch

I was looking through some of my older magazines, the ones for fall, as I was looking for something with seasonable recipes. Sure, they are from a year or two ago but they still work! While I have the best of intention when I look at magazines, I’m not very good about actually making the recipes that I hope to.  This particular issue of BBC Good Food had a number of things that looked excellent. 

I came across this recipe for honey cake with almonds and it looked fantastic. I love baking with honey and I’ve made a couple of almond cakes that are always good. It didn’t call for any unusual ingredients either. I figured it would be pretty simple to put together, but when I read the method for making the cake, it was a bit different. (I’m not always good about reading all the way through recipes!) It uses two mixer bowls and you beat the egg whites in one and everything else in the other. I thought about just making it the standard way I do other quick breads, but I went ahead and made it as directed.

I overbeat my egg whites, but I used them anyway and it worked out. The batter is quite heavy, but once I got going I got everything incorporated ok. You do have to be careful when baking with honey, as it can burn if you aren’t careful. This cake was supped to bake about 55 minutes, but I checked mine at 50 minutes and it was browned around the edges. I would bake it a few less minutes next time. The cake wasn’t dry, and the honey/almond topping was great. I wouldn’t go as far as call it an almond honey crunch topping, but it is pretty great!

6 ounces butter, softened

3 ounces plus 4 tablespoons honey, divided

3 ounces sugar

3 ounces ground almonds

8 ounces flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

3-1/2 ounces plain yogurt

2 eggs plus 1 egg white

3 ounces sliced almonds

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9” x 5” loaf pan and line with parchment that overhangs the pan. This will make it easier to remove from the pan.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter, 3 ounces honey, sugar, ground almonds, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and yogurt. Add one whole egg and one egg yolk. In another mixer bowl, add the egg white from the separated egg and the additional egg white. (So one bowl has 2 egg whites and the bowl with all of the other ingredients has one entire egg and one yolk.)

Beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks. Remove that bowl from the mixer and mix the bowl with all of the ingredients until the mixture is smooth. Stir in about 1/3 of the beaten egg whites to lighten the batter and then fold in the remaining egg whites with a spatula.

Spread the batter into the prepared pan and top with the sliced almonds. Bake until golden and a cake tester comes out clean, about 45-50 minutes. Immediately drizzle the cake with 2 tablespoons honey and return to the oven for 5 additional minutes. Remove from the oven and drizzle with the remaining 2 tablespoons honey and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Remove from the pan and slice when cooled.

Recipe from BBC Good Food