Greek Almond-Honey Cake

Submitted by evelynathens

"A traditional honey cake using almond meal instead of flour or semolina. Like many greek cakes, it is further enriched by a honey syrup, making it very rich. Greeks don't have a dessert like this after a meal - that would be too much of a good thing. Rather, we would have it with a cup of coffee in the early evening, after our afternoon siesta."

 

• Ready In: 1hr
• Ingredients: 13
• Serves: 15

ingredients

• 3 1⁄2 cups almond flour (if you can't get the flour, grind almonds up fairly fine with a couple of tablespoonfuls of sugar an)
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1⁄2 cups honey (greek thyme honey is excellent!)
• 1 cup yoghurt (go ahead, get the greek stuff)
• 1⁄2 cup blanched almond, coarsely chopped
• 4 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
• 1 tablespoon fresh orange zest
• 1⁄2 cup butter
• 1⁄2 cup blanched slivered almond

• Honey Syrup

• 1 1⁄2 cups honey (yep, same stuff as you put in the cake)
• 1 1⁄2 cups orange juice

directions

1. Make the syrup first: bring 1 1/2 cups honey and 1 1/2 cups orange juice to a boil in a saucepan.
2. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 min.
3. Skim surface of syrup for any froth that may form.
4. Allow syrup to cool.
5. For cake: Preheat oven to 350F.
6. Butter a 9 X 13 inch baking dish well.
7. Sift together almond flour and baking soda.
8. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until you have a stiff meringue.
9. Combine egg yolks, honey, yoghurt, almonds, orange juice concentrate, and orange zest.
10. Stir into dry ingredients.
11. Gently fold in 1/4 of meringue mixture to lighten almond batter, and then fold in the rest.
12. It is OK to have a few white streaks.
13. Pour batter into baking pan.
14. Scatter blanched, slivered almonds over top.
15. Bake until top is golden, about 45 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean.
16. Pour syrup over hot cake.
17. Poke cake gently with a toothpick to help cake absorb syrup.
18. Serve when cake is cool and syrup has been absorbed.
19. This cake is great served with a dollop of very lightly-sweetened whipped cream.

Reviews

[Kat C.]

Got to the end of the recipe when I realized I didn't add the butter because it wasn't stated in the directions when to add it....unless you use an entire stick of butter to oil the pan? This wasn't made clear, so I left the butter out. It's baking right now; I really hope it turns out well. The batter pre-merengue was very soupy so I added more almond flour to thicken it up (about anot her 3/4 cup). It seemed odd to add the merengue when it was already light, but I did anyway. Also, the "syrup" isn't thick like a syrup should be. It's more of a juice, and that was again with adding more honey to help thicken it. Eh, I feel like this recipe wasn't tested enough before posting it...anyway, I'll post an update when it's done cooking. I don't have much hope at this point...maybe I'll be surprised...

 

[puppitypup]

While the cake tasted good, the consistency didn't seem right. It could be my fault since I was expecting it to be like a cake from our local greek restaurant. It's hard to describe the texture, but the recipe came out more moist and not so much cake.

 

[Kittencalrecipezazz]

This cake is just fantastic! I did use almond flour that I keep in my freezer, and used Greek full-fat yogurt, I can't tell you how much we loved this cake, it is almost half gone! This will go into my cake favorites, thanks Ev!...Kitten:)