My baking repertoire has always consists of round shaped cakes or square shaped bars. Seldom have I bake my goods in a loaf tin. After browsing through my newly bought Rachel Allen - Bake, I decided upon a recipe that caught my attention - honey loaf cake.
The recipe is pretty straightforward without fancy ingredients. Just the usual flour, butter and eggs. Wait a minute... Where has the sugar gone to? Here is the catch. This honey loaf cake uses purely honey as a sweetener. Sounds like a good deal~
After 10 minutes into baking, I could sniff the smell of honey slowing making its way out of the oven. When the cake was done, it has light golden hue. The loaf domed but splitted widely at the top. That did not affect the appearance too much though. Afterall, the cake is to be sliced and the split would not have been noticeable.
I could not resist the urge and took one slice of it. The cake is dense yet soft and it exudes a very light sweetness of honey. It would be perfect by adding a thin layer of jam or butter it. I tried topping with raspberry jam and peach jam on 2 separate slices and very much prefferred the later.
Honey Loaf Cake ( recipe adapted from Rachel Allen - Bake )
Equipment: 9 x 5 inch loaf tin
Ingredients:
275g flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
120g butter, softened
175g runny honey
75ml milk
2 eggs (60g each), beaten
1 tbs warm honey ( for brushing)
Method:
1) Preheat oven to 170 degrees C
2) In a big bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. Whisk them well to distribute the ingredients uniformly.
3) Beat butter till soft. Add the honey and cream it with the butter till light and fluffy on medium speed.
4) Add in eggs gradually and beat till combined.
5) Fold in the flour mixture until smooth. It will be dough-like.
6) Finally, add in the milk and fold untill a soft dough-like batter is obtained
7) Pour batter into lined loaf tin and bake for 45 -55 minutes. Check for doneness using a wooden skewer. Insert skewer in the middle and it should come out clean with no wet dough.
8) Remove cake from tin and brush with warm honey
zy! noneed to separate egg whites from egg yolks ah? this looks interesting! i wanna try since i have a loaf pan =D
ReplyDeletehey aud,
ReplyDeleteyup no need to separate the eggs. make sure eggs are at room temperature. you can soak the eggs in warm water for about 5 minutes to bring it to warm temperature. I use warm water directly from my heater, lol. This cake is not very sweet, should suit you well. =]
hehe okay. good you still remember my taste =D
ReplyDeletewill try it out and tell you how it goes. first, how much is the honey ah? cold storage shld be able to get hor.
Hey aud,
ReplyDeleteyou can get the honey from any supermarket. the price range varies. No need to get the higher ends one. just get one that you are comfortable with.
you know! my mum ask me to use manuka honey. but i don't think can right? cus it's not runny hor.
ReplyDeletehey aud,
ReplyDeletemanuka honey is expensive! lol. one bottle cost in the range of 15 to 30 dollars. im not sure if manuka honey is runny anot. honey that is straight from the fridge wont be runny for sure. leave it on the kitchen counter for half an hour or more and it will be runny. thats for more afforadable brands of honey.
i used manuka honey haha. and i added a little hot water to make it runny. but hor i think the concentration of sweetness dropped. not sweet at all. im trying this again tml (:
ReplyDeletewill tell you how it goes again!
hey aud
ReplyDeletethe cake is not supposed to be sweet anyway but it should still have the fragrance of honey. it taste best with jam. If eaten alone, it might be bland to some. This recipe yields a more bread-like cake, not those ordinary cakes in confectionaries which contain much higher sugar levels and butter. Hence its called honey loaf
i did it again! this time it's nice, the texture is great and stuff. just that, i think still have to add sugar to make it sweeter? cus i can taste a little, but it's not enough. i did try with jam though, and it's great!
ReplyDelete