I’ve already started baking for yom tov. Not because I’m super organised. I’m not. I was trouble shooting.

A reader had emailed me for honey cake help.

On paper, it looks the most simple bake: mix your dry ingredients; then the wet ingredients; mix them together; pour into a lined tin and bake. Simples.

But no, it’s fraught with potential failure and my personal bête noire. In the run up to Rosh Hashanah you can guarantee at least one cake will let me down and fail to cook through — emerging from the oven sunken and soggy. Not a good yom tov look.

I get several calls and emails on the same issue and at this time of year, Facebooks food groups are awash with soggy honey cake kvetching.

A JC reader, we’ll call her Susan Gold, emailed one afternoon, just before Shabbat, to say that her honey cake was failing her. She’d taken Evelyn Rose’s honey lekach recipe from the JC in 1971 (which also appeared in the Complete International Jewish Cook Book) and it had worked for her ever since. Recently, though, Mrs Gold’s honey cake had started to let her down.

“My family loved this cake but for some years now I have had one disaster after another and even people I have passed it on to are having problems. Not baking evenly, as if it were not well mixed and a deep heavy cavity in the middle. Originally I used gas no 3 then electric 325°f now 170°c. I have a fan oven as well but I don’t know what to do and I am not prepared to spoil any more cakes ( how many uses can you put unsuccessful honey cake to) it becomes expensive.”

Never one to ignore a balaboosta in need, I responded at once to say that I would seek the opinion of Judi Rose, Evelyn’s daughter.

As the heaviness was down to the cake not being fully cooked through, I made a couple of suggestions: (a) to try splitting the mixture into more than one smaller tin – which would allow the cakes to each cook through; and (b) to cook the cake for longer at a lower temperature.

So this weekend, saw Judi and I testing the recipes ourselves. She cooked up the original (offending) recipe and I baked the revised version in the New Complete International Jewish Cook Book. Apart from my tin being slightly different dimen7sions to Rose’s — but the same capacity — I followed the recipe to the letter. The cake worked perfectly, but would, I think have benefited from 5 or even 10 minutes less in the oven, as it's a tad dry, It has cooked through though and will improve over the next few days. A honey glaze or dipping it into dessert wine will overcome any remaining dryness.  

Judi Rose also followed her recipe to the letter, using a 9 x 9 inch tin. Hers — albeit a little dark — also worked, looking rich and moist. She could see the 1971 recipe had been tweaked by the time it reached the New Complete International book.

Her opinion was that the original recipe was a teensy bit temperamental, so her mother had revisited it. The original one did work, but you needed to be 100% accurate in weighing and tin size. Changes outside of your control, like an oven not cooking at the right temperature could ruin the whole bake. Known for her reliability, Evelyn Rose would have changed her recipes to ensure that they did not let you down. Which is what she did with this one. 

So, as a public service announcement, if you want to go with the Evelyn Rose Anglo-Jewish lekach recipe this year, you should look to this, the most recent recipe in the New Complete International Jewish Cookbook (Pavilion):

Ingredients:
275g plain flour
75g caster sugar
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 level tsp mixed spice
(I added ½ tsp salt)
225g clear honey (weigh it!)
100ml flavourless oil
2 eggs
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda, dissolved in 125ml fresh orange juice (about 1 ½ oranges) plus the grated zest of 1 orange (I didn’t use the zest as I didn’t want the orange to overpower the spices) (watch this in action in the video below)
50 chopped walnuts

Method:

• Heat oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Line a tin about 25cm x 20cm x 5cm with baking parchment.

• Mix together the flour, sugar, salt (if using) and spices in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Mix the honey, oil, eggs and orange zest (if using) in a jug and beat until smooth. Pour into the well and mix until you have a smooth batter.
• Put the orange juice in a medium sized bowl and dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in it. Add that, and the nuts into the cake batter and stir quickly to combine.

• Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 50 – 55 minutes, or until firm to the touch. Cool on a wire rack.

• When cold, wrap in foil and leave at room temperature for 4 – 5 days before using. You can freeze it (well wrapped) for up to 3 months.

You’ll find more tips on how to bake lovely lekach and my Honey Cake 101 in the lead up to Rosh Hashanah.