August 31, 2013
If you hung around to help clean up a week ago Sunday, you got served some Honey Cake Pops on August 25th at Congregation Etz Chayim’s religious school’s Rosh Hashanah celebration called “The Shofar is Calling You.” They were very good.
In brief, the recipe is simple but time consuming: Take some unfrosted cake, crumble it up, mix it with cream cheese, form the mixture into balls, stick lollipop sticks in the balls of cake, freeze, dip in white chocolate, and decorate.
Takes a while. But I had a lot of honeycake on my hands, and needed a good way to use it. It wasn’t in good enough shape to slice and serve, but it made delicious and different cake pops.
Here is a link to the cake pop instructions I used:
http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2012/02/how-to-make-cake-pops.html
This year, I made my favorite honey cake recipe three times. Why? Because the damn cake got stuck in my ring pan, despite thicker and different non-stick measures like Pam and Crisco and Crisco and flour. so the cake was not remotely presentable, because it looked like Godzilla had licked off the top crust. It tasted fine, though.
My extra tasty Five Spice Honeycake recipe is derived from an Epicurious recipe. The cake is intriguing in flavor and not heavy or gluey at all. Here is the recipe:
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 Tablespoons Chinese five-spice powder–my substitution for cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup honey
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup warm coffee or strong tea
- 1/2 cup fresh orange juice
- 1/4 cup rye or whisky (see Note)
- 1/2 cup slivered or sliced almonds (optional)
preparation
I like this cake best baked in a 9-inch angel food cake pan, but you can also make it in a 10-inch tube or bundt cake pan, a 9 by 13-inch sheetpan, or three 8 by 4 1/2-inch loaf pans.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease the pan(s). For tube and angel food pans, line the bottom with lightly greased parchment paper. For gift honey cakes, I use “cake collars” (available from Sweet Celebrations) designed to fit a specific loaf pan. These give the cakes an appealing, professional look.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Make a well in the center and add the oil, honey, sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee, orange juice, and rye or whisky.
Using a strong wire whisk or an electric mixer on slow speed, combine the ingredients well to make a thick batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom of the bowl.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan(s) and sprinkle the top of the cake(s) evenly with the almonds. Place the cake pan(s) on 2 baking sheets stacked together and bake until the cake springs back when you touch it gently in the center. For angel and tube cake pans, bake for 60 to 70 minutes; loaf cakes, 45 to 55 minutes. For sheet-style cakes, the baking time is 40 to 45 minutes. This is a liquidy batter and, depending on your oven, it may need extra time. Cake should spring back when gently pressed.
Let the cake stand for 15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Then invert it onto a wire rack to cool completely.
note:If you prefer not to use the whisky, replace it with orange juice or coffee.
Reprinted with permission from Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking by Marcy Goldman. © 2009 Whitecap Books, Ltd.
So cake pops!
I took the cakes and broke them up into crumbs using two forks.
I added Five Spice powder to whipped cream cheese, and blended using a hand mixer, then added a cup of cream cheese frosting. I added that frosting to the crumbs, and maybe even a few tablespoons of water.
I put the mix of crumbs, cream cheese, and cream cheese frosting in the fridge to cool.
After cooling, I rolled the mix into balls, stuck sticks in them, and put them in the freezer. I have a spare freezer in the garage.
One morning while I was feeling crafty, I melted some white chocolate. Actually a box of Ghirardelli’s white coverture chips.
Working a with a few at a time, so the cake balls on sticks stayed frozen, I coated them in white chocolate. As I coated in chocolate, I dipped each cake pop in almonds or blue sugar.
Here are some pictures of the honey cake cake pop process:\, but you know as soon as things got interesting, my hands were too full of cake to take pictures of the rolling into balls and dipping into white chocolate. Oh, well. A Beautiful Mess has good pictures.
- whipped cream cheese, chunks of honey cake
- Packaged cream cheese frosting, more five spices in the cream cheese, crumbs
- After coating in white chocolate and putting sliced almonds on
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Onecakebaker 