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Bees Knees Honey Cake

Bees Knees Honey Cake
    • Prep time:
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  • Serves: 8-10

This is my honey cake – I call it my bees knees cake. It’s adapted from many recipes, over a few years – I’ve made this quite a few times now, it’s such a delicious autumnal cake. The honey, rosemary and spices come together to give a cosy almost festive feeling (without it being Christmas cake!) and the lemon frosting adds some zing. I’m a huge fan of Christmas baking flavours, and this is like a lovely precursor to those!

  • Vegetarian

Ingredients

For the honey cake

  • 150g unsalted butter
  • 120g dark brown sugar
  • 175g honey
  • 200g plain flour
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • 1tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary leaves
  • 2 eggs

For the honey cake frosting

  • 125g cream cheese
  • 60g soft unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp orange juice
  • 550g icing sugar

Equipment

  • An 8" cake tin

Method

To make this bees knees honey cake, preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line with baking parchment an 8 inch cake tin.

Step 1

Combine the butter, sugars and honey in a saucepan over a low heat, bring to the boil and gently simmer until all of the butter and sugar is dissolved. You should end up with a thick, glossy, dark liquid. Transfer into a mixing bowl and leave this to cool for at least 15 minutes.

Step 2

Mix the eggs into the butter-sugar-honey mix (this is why you want to make sure the mix is cool – otherwise it’ll cook your eggs!), until you get a smooth batter.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients – the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and rosemary leaves. Mix thoroughly.

Slowly incorporate the liquid mix into the dry mix, stirring until you get a glossy mixture.

Step 3

Pour into your tin and bake for 35-45 mins, or until a skewer comes out cleanly. Leave it to cool in the tin before turning out (if you take it out of the tin too soon, it may start to split!).

Step 4

For the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter in a bowl, add the lemon juice, and then gradually at the icing sugar, until it’s of spreading consistency.

Decorate however you like – I always grate orange zest on top, and add some lavender flowers.

This bees knees honey cake serves 8-10 people (or fewer hungry people!).

Bees Knees Honey Cake Recipe - The cake being made in a saucepan and then sliced and served on a white saucer

Now site back and enjoy!

If you liked making this Bees Knees Honey Cake recipe, check out a few more recipes.