Nana’s honey cake

You'll love this super easy recipe for honey cake, which is traditionally eaten on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year. The honey symbolises the hope for a sweet year ahead.

• serves

  10

• prep

  50 minutes

• cook

  1 hour

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup honey
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3½ cups self-raising flour
• 1 cup strong black tea (made using 3 tea bags in 1 cup boiling water)
• icing sugar, to serve (optional)

Cooling time: 15 minutes

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C (Gas 4). Grease a 24 cm chiffon cake tin, then mould some foil onto the bottom of the tin to prevent leaking and sticking.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar using an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the honey and beat well, then beat in the oil.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Alternating the ingredients, gradually beat the flour and tea into the egg yolk mixture, the fold the egg whites into the batter.

Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. If the cake does not come out easily, put hot water onto a tea towel and put it on the base of the cake to ease it out. Sift icing sugar over it before serving, if desired.

Recipe from Cooking From The Heart: A Journey Through Food by Hayley Smorgon and Gaye Weeden, with photographs by Mark Roper. Published by Hardie Grant.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.