Jewish Honey Cake with Coffee
The first time I poured this batter into the pans, I honestly thought I’d forgotten half the flour. It’s that thin, closer to chocolate milk than cake batter. Don’t fix it. The loose batter is supposed to look like that, and beating the eggs with the brown sugar for 4 or 5 minutes at the start does the rest of the lifting.
I bake it low at 300°F for most of the time, then crank the oven to 350°F for the last 10 minutes so the top darkens and gets that slightly sticky, crackled shell. Coffee doesn’t make it taste like a latte. It just deepens the honey and keeps it from going cloying. We slice it thick with a bowl of green grapes on the side, and it keeps 4 days wrapped at room temperature.
This Jewish honey cake with coffee is a lekach, the loaf traditionally sliced for a sweet new year at Rosh Hashanah. It's dairy-free. One batch fills two loaf pans, so there's one to keep and one to give away, and both slice more neatly a day after baking.
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Heat the oven to 300°F with a rack in the middle. Line two 8.5x4.5-inch loaf pans with parchment paper, leaving a little overhang on the long sides so you can lift the cakes out later.
- Put the eggs and brown sugar in the bowl of the stand mixer fitted with the whisk, or in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer. Beat on high for 4 to 5 minutes, until the mixture is pale, foamy and roughly doubled.5 large eggs, 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp packed light brown sugar
- Drop the speed to medium-low. Pour in the cooled coffee, then the oil, then the honey, letting each one blend in before adding the next.1/2 cup strong brewed coffee, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 1/2 cup honey
- Keep the mixer on low and add the flour, baking powder and baking soda gradually, in three or four additions. Stop as soon as the batter is smooth with no dry streaks. It will be thin and pourable; that's normal.2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Divide the batter evenly between the two lined pans, about 525 g each. Bake on the middle rack for 40 minutes at 300°F.
- Raise the oven to 350°F and bake 10 minutes more, until the tops are deep brown and a toothpick pushed into the center of each cake comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then lift them out by the parchment and cool completely on a wire rack. Cut each loaf into 8 slices.
Nutrition
Notes
Instead of brewed coffee, dissolve 2 teaspoons instant coffee in 1/2 cup hot water and let it cool before adding it in step 3. Wrapped tightly, the loaves keep 4 days at room temperature or 3 months in the freezer.
You might also like our Pumpkin Coffee Cake Loaf.
