A Sturdy Winter Cake

Fit for travel (if it makes it that far)

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Photo by Henry Be on Unsplash

We’re a sturdy cake family.

You know the kind of cake that will happily travel in a container to somewhere else and still be solidly intact when it arrives?

That kind.

This is in part becuase l am not a great baker - I have trouble not wildly tweaking recipes you see. Can’t help myself. And delicate cakes do not tolerate my recklessness.

It is also partly because as a small child and tween my dad was a pastry chef and he ran the business from home at that time. I was surrounded by more cake than your regular high tea on any given day and regularly rolled my eyes when it was suggested l could have some when l got home from school. A hard no.

You see, there is only so much mud cake, dobos (does anyone even make this anymore?!), and orange mud cake that a person can consume before it becomes mundane.

I also still don’t really eat hot cross buns or cinnamon donuts 😬.

In fact, it was common for me to swap my home baked goods in the playground for deleterious foodlike snacks. I cringe now.

Nevertheless, study cakes and l, we get on.

So, an extra newsletter this week to share a reliable winter cake you could cart in a tin about your person, to Mordor even, and it will still be in one piece and make a delicious refreshment.

I like to think Samwise would have thoroughly enjoyed this one.

I will give one caveat.

It is better warm, but room temp is fine. You can taste the orange more when it is warm. I also like it straight from the fridge because the fennel is more pronounced but my husband tells me it is too dense this way.

Do with this information what you will!

Toasted Fennel & Honey Cake

Ingredients

• 220g softened butter

• 1/2 cup of honey

• Zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange

• 4 eggs

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 200g semolina

• 150g almond meal

• 1/2 cup of Greek yoghurt + some whey

• 3 tsp toasted fennel seeds, ground/crushed

• Finely grated orange rind, to serve

Lemon honey:

• 3 pieces of lemon rind, removed with a peeler

• 1/8 cup of honey + 1/8 cup of water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Line or grease a 22cm cake tin.

2. Toast the fennel seeds in a dry pan, shaking constantly to avoid burning. Use a mortar and pestle or blitz in a coffee grinder.

3. Beat butter and honey in an electric mixer until smooth - sometimes it will remain lumpy if the honey has crystallised; don’t worry, it won’t affect the cake.

4. Add citrus zest and combine until mixed through.

5. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

6. Add baking powder, semolina, almond meal, citrus juice, yoghurt and 1 tbs ish of whey (whatever you can get out of the pot is fine), ground fennel seeds and a pinch of salt and mix to just combine.

7. Tip batter into the tin and bake until cake is golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean (around 40ish minutes). You don’t want any wobble or it will be soggy with the addition of the honey syrup!

8. For the lemon honey, combine honey, water, and lemon in a small saucepan and gently warm, stirring.

9. Remove from heat.

10. Pierce cake all over with a skewer, then drizzle with syrup and set aside to cool (1-2 hours).

11. Scatter cake with orange zest.

Delicious served with yoghurt.

Warmest,

Rachel x