But we've still got something left to give, to live for

[sovay]

Because neither of the next two nights works for everyone in my family to get together, we celebrated Erev Rosh Hashanah with apples and honey, roast chicken, challah, zucchini (accidental gourd!), and the honeycake my mother and I spent yesterday afternoon baking. I lit candles. I said the blessings. This year it looks like the Shehecheyanu is the important one. Here we still are to see this season in, bitter or sweet, but may it be sweet. May it be sweet. May the writing of our lives be nothing to atone for. L'shanah tovah, all.

Comments

[pameladean]

A belated but sincere wish of a sweet year to you.

I am curious about the honeycake, but don't want to be demanding secret family recipes or anything of that sort. I used to make a honeycake from a Hungarian cookbook that was extremely good, but it didn't have any whiskey in it.

P.

[sovay]

A belated but sincere wish of a sweet year to you.

Thank you! Likewise.

I am curious about the honeycake, but don't want to be demanding secret family recipes or anything of that sort. I used to make a honeycake from a Hungarian cookbook that was extremely good, but it didn't have any whiskey in it.

Ours uses rum. Otherwise a lot of honey, a lot of spices, a lot of eggs, no dairy. Trace amounts of decaffeinated coffee, making it the one thing I knowingly eat with coffee in it (and don't eat a lot of, but it's important and worth it). Raisins in. Almonds on top. The recipe came down to me as originating with my great-aunt.

[pameladean]

Oh, fascinating. The one I used, until I was no longer friends with eggs, also had almonds on top, but no raisins. Lots of eggs, which you separated and whipped the whites of to be carefully folded in near the end. Some spices I don't recall, except for cardamom. A cousin once removed of your recipe, perhaps.

P.

[sovay]

Lots of eggs, which you separated and whipped the whites of to be carefully folded in near the end. Some spices I don't recall, except for cardamom. A cousin once removed of your recipe, perhaps.

Yes—there's no separation or folding of the eggs in ours and our spices are nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. It's a dark, moist, dense cake. The original recipe used allspice, but since for years we made honeycakes for someone to whom allspice was not a friend, we just left it out and now it would change the cake to add it back in again. The coffee was a similar adaptation for me.

[pameladean]

Oh, the recipes with tweaks for particular people are the best recipes. Well, up to a point, anyway. I have not figured out an egg-replacement tweak for mine yet. But I haven't tried everything, either.

P.

[selkie]

I've used straight-up powdered egg replacer in the Seventies-looking box, before; works fine.

A recipe with separated, volumized eggs suggests a Warsaw relation somewhere along the way. Layered honey cake is usually Russian and semolina-flour honey cake is Hungarian. Rum raisin honey cake, I think, is Lexingtonian. :)

...Sometimes I get to talk about cake with Pamela Dean OH MY GOD. *faints*

[sovay]

Rum raisin honey cake, I think, is Lexingtonian.

Hey, I think Aunt Frances lived in Boca Raton.

(The raisins—or currants—are soaked in the coffee beforehand, providing the trace amounts. The rum just goes in with the rest of the liquid ingredients, like the pound of honey.)

[pameladean]

I've got some. It is a pretty funny box. But it didn't quite work for this recipe. The stuff whipped up fine and was, I think, a good replacement for the egg whites. But without yolks, the rest of the cake just wasn't right. This didn't stop us from eating it all, but it niggles at me.

This recipe was in a cookbook written by a Hungarian who came to the US and ran an amazing restaurant in Chicago for many years, but who's to say where he got it? I am now intrigued by the idea of layered honey cakes.

I was puzzled by the raisins, but they sound delicious.

*hunts helplessly for sal volatile* I think you know a lot more about cake than I do, so I'm much obliged.

P.

[selkie]

Well, I am a good eater and a decent baker, and the Jewish genealogy of recipes is very important to me. :)

What wasn't quite right when you used the egg replacer? Did it feel cloth-y, or was the cake just lean-feeling and not plush enough? There are fixes to either problem if you care to elaborate from memory.