
Possibly the best cake I have ever made and I think my dedication to cake is well established.
For a few weeks I’ve had a hankering for a honey-scented cake, similar to my quest for a decent honey ice-cream, even though ice-cream and my stomach don’t see eye-to-eye.

Food52’s Baking book delivered. Honey AND pecans, we were onto a winner.
There are steps, there are bowls, just work with it.

Food52 uses a 23cm round springform pan with baking paper that comes up above the join but this sounded like a doomed plan to me so I used a 20cm square tin, which I lined with one piece of baking paper with no joins in it whatsoever (so the caramel can’t escape)
Honey Pecan Cake
A stunning combination of honey and pecans in a delicate cake
Author: allconsuming based on Food52's Baking
Ingredients
For the topping
- 2 tbsp butter
- ¼ cup honey
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup pecan halves
For the cake
- ½ cup pecans
- 1 cup plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 3 eggs, separated
- 110g butter
- ½ cup caster sugar
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 175C and line your prefered pan
For the topping
- Melt the butter with the honey then pour over the bottom of the pan
- Evenly spread the pecans over it
For the cake
- Blitz the pecans into a flour, add to the plain flour and set aside
- Whisk the eggwhites to stiff peaks and set aside
- Cream the butter and sugar until pale
- Then add the egg yolks, then the honey, vanilla and buttermilk
- Gently stir in the flours
- Gently fold through the egg whites and then spoon into the pan over the pecans
- Bake for 35-40mins
- Let it cool a little then flip onto a serving platter
- It'd be divine with ice-cream or cream. Or both.
Onward!