Photo credit: Dikla Frances
Prep Cook Yield Ready In
15 minutes 25-55 minutes 6 Up to 1 hour 10 minutes

Traditional Honey Cake With a Delicious Twist

This cake is transformed with a few easy tweaks.

Honey cake is always one of the highlights of Rosh Hashanah. Moist from the addition of applesauce and sticky with honey, this traditional recipe is always a winner. And with a few simple tweaks, like the addition of toasted almonds, it can be transformed into another cake entirely. We highly recommend baking both.

Photo credit: Dikla Frances

Reprinted with permission from One Sarcastic Baker.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup dark or light brown sugar (dark brown sugar will result in a darker, moister cake)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup vegetable oil 
  • 1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour 
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce 
  • 1/3 cup + 2 Tbsp honey

Optional: 1/4 cup honey,1 Tbsp powdered sugar, and/or 1/3 cup pomegranate seeds for decorating.

For the almond honey cake, add: 

  • 1/2 cup sliced toasted almonds
  • 1/2 cup warm honey for soaking
Photo credit: Dikla Frances

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 340 degrees F. Line the bottom of 9″ loaf pan, or 9″ round pan for the almond honey cake, with parchment paper and grease the sides.
  2. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda together. Set aside.
  3. In a large measuring cup, mix the applesauce and honey together. Set aside.
  4. Place the sugar and eggs in the bowl of a standing mixer and mix on medium speed for a few minutes until the mix is lighter in color, 4-5 minutes.
  5. Turn mixer speed to low and slowly drizzle the oil into the bowl. Return speed to medium.
  6. Add the flour in three additions alternating with the applesauce-honey mix.
  7. Pour batter into greased loaf pan. Bake until the center is golden and a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake, 45-50 minutes.
  8. Let the cake cool before slicing. If you chose, drizzle the cake with 1/4 cup of warm honey or dust it with some powdered sugar.

For the almond honey cake:

  1. Repeat steps 1-6.
  2. Pour batter into greased loaf pan. Bake until the center is golden and a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake, 25-30 minutes. 
  3. When ready to top the cake, preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Remove the cake from the pan and place it on a cooling rack placed on a cookie sheet.
  4. With a small tooth pick, poke the cake and brush it with the warm honey. Top with almonds.
  5. Bake for five minutes. Allow the cake to completely cool before placing on a serving dish.

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