This year’s honeycake
My mother surprised us all by using two different honeycake recipes this year - and neither of them are family ones. Five family recipes are languishing, lost and forlorn. Well, four, really, since I gave you my personal favourite the night before last.
If anyone has a honeycake rcipe the world needs to know, I’d be happy to act as a conduit, lest more old recipes get lost. I promise I will put the requisite work in to find the actual written recipes for the forlorn ones - I just won’t have time to do it for a bit.
While you wait, let me introduce you to one of the new ones, which comes from Lox, Stocks & Bagels. Australian Gourmet Kosher Cookbook (Women Caring for Women Australia, 1994)
Special Honey Cake
500 g honey
1 cup oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
500 g walnuts
1 packet mixed peel
1/2 cup sultanas
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tbs rum
juice 1 lemon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup boiling water
3 1/2 cups plain flour
Mix the first four ingredients thoroughly. To the mixture add the walnuts, mixed peel, sultanas. mixed spice, rum, lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda dissolved in boiling water. Mix well, Gradually add plain flour. Bake for 1 hour in greased paperlined tin at 350 degrees F.
This is a variant of the same cake that I gave earlier in the week - my mother has gravitated towards a recipe that’s like a family recipe, which is interesting. The other possibility is that the two recipes come from an ur-recipe. They’re both products of the Melbourne Jewish community, after all. If I ever find that ur-recipe, I promise I’ll tell you all about it.
September 15th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
What does 350 degrees F translate into celsius? I plan to try this recipe after the school holidays, so will let you know how it goes!
September 16th, 2007 at 5:09 am
It’s a moderate oven - maybe 175 degrees C?