Greek Honey & Lemon Cake with A Twist

KitchenManiac's Note:

This is such a fantastic cake!! Golden brown and slightly crispy on the outside, bright yellow and moist on the inside. The combination of lemon and honey flavours in the cake is really great. The sesame seeds give it a added twist to it. From the Cookbook Desserts by Rosemary Wilkinson. PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS RECIPE, I HAVE MESSED IT UP SOMEHOW AND I CAN'T SOLVE IT. SO SORRY.

• Total Time: 35 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 16 slices

• 3 tablespoons margarine or 3 tablespoons butter (I prefer Butter)
• 4 tablespoons clear honey
• 1 lemon, juice and rind of
• 2⁄3; cup low-fat milk
• 1 ¼ cups flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1⁄3; cup semolina flour
• 2 egg whites , beaten till they form soft peaks
• 2 teaspoons sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 200C/400F Lightly grease and line a 7 1/2 inch square deep cake tin.
2. Place margarine/butter and 3 tablespoon honey in a saucepan and heat gently till melted.
3. Reserve 1 tablespoon lemon juice, stir in the rest with lemon rind and milk.
4. Combine both the lemon mixture and butter mixture together.
5. Sift together the flour, baking powder and nutmeg, add to the wet mixture.
6. Add the semolina flour into the mixture.
7. Fold egg whites evenly into the mixture.
8. Spoon into cake tin and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
9. Bake for 25-39 minutes, till golden brown.
10. Mix the reserved honey and lemon juice and drizzle over the cake while it is still warm.
11. Cool in the tin, then cut into fingers to serve.

Reviews

[Mirj]

It's the Jewish High Holiday season now, and you would think that I would have honey cake coming out of my ears by now, but this cake is so different from the honey cakes I usually make, so I had to try it. I followed the recipe almost exactly, I wanted the cake to be non-dairy, so I used margarine instead of butter and soy milk instead of regular milk. The cake had a very nice texture to it, rich and very similar to basboosa, a Middle Eastern semolina cake. I do think the lemon flavor was a little too overpowering, the honey and lemon taste reminded me a little of cough syrup. I don't think 4 tablespoons of honey was enough to sweeten the cake, especially with a full lemon's worth of juice in there. I'm going to try to make this again, this time upping the honey to about 1/3 of a cup and cutting back on the lemon juice (or use a much smaller lemon). This is a good cake to serve at the end of a Middle Eastern style meal, with some Turkish coffee or sweet mint tea. Thanks Vanessa!

[Charishma_Ramchandani]

These little fingers are big delights, Vaneesa! They are absolutely delicious because of the honey and lemon syrup. What I really really like is how presentable these are without really putting in much of an effort for presenting these beautifully, they just come out beautiful when baked because of the sesame seeds on the top. Instead of baking this as a cake, I baked these as 8 muffins:) They're really a sight and such a delight - I like them so much that I don't have the heart to break them apart into little fingers! LOL:)) Thanks Vaneesa, these are a super hit and if I ever have a Valentine, I'll make sure I feed these to him;-)!

[8elbows]

Light and yummy! I'm a bit a sugar hound, so it wasn't quite sweet enough for me... but still delicious. (I poured a bit more honey over mine. :-) Thanks for sharing.