German Honey Cake (Honigkuchen)

Sometimes delicious things dovetail together. For example.

I was working on a recipe for German Honey Cake for my German Food Page over at about.com and was lamenting the lack of candied fruit in my cabinets and in the local supermarkets.

Enter Paradise Candied Fruit Company, who coincidentally contacted me a few days later and asked me if I would like to try their product. Wow. perfect timing. Problem Solved.

When these gorgeous, tasty fruit jewels arrived, I was excited to use them in my recipe. They were just what it needed. They taste great, work well in baking and can be used to beautifully decorate any dessert.

Sometimes called “lebkuchen”, this dense and spicy honey cake is mostly made at Christmas time in Germany. However, it is also the perfect cake to make for the Jewish holidays. For this recipe, I used the cherry pineapple mix.A big thank you to Paradise Candied Fruit Company for the lovely product.

 

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup honey
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
•  1 + 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
• 1/4 teaspoon clove powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• 1 + 1/3 cups of dried or glacé fruit of your choice. (I used glacé red and green cherries and pineapple)
• 3/4 cups blanched almond splinters
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
• 2 tablespoons dark rum
• 1/4 cup whole blanched almonds*
• 6 whole Glacé cherries, cut in half

*To blanch almonds – Drop raw whole almonds into boiling water for 1 minute. Remove, rinse with cold water. and remove skins. If you are short some piece for decoration cut a few in half and use the half pieces for decorating instead of the whole almonds.

Directions:

• Coat a 9 inch x 13-inch size baking pan with baking spray.
• Add 2 tablespoons of flour into the pan and shake the flour around until it coats the bottom and sides. Set aside.
• In a medium saucepan over medium heat melt the honey and the unsalted butter pieces, stirring to combine. Remove from heat and set aside to cool completely.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, unsweetened cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder and clove powder and salt.
• Dice the dried or glacé fruit into very small pieces.
• In a mixer, beat the eggs and white granulated sugar at high speed until fluffy.
• Lower the speed to medium and slowly stream in the cooled, melted honey and butter combination.
• Switch to the dough hook on the mixer and reduce the speed. Sprinkle in the combined dry ingredients in thirds until combined completely.
• Add the chopped dried or glacé fruit, almonds splinters, lemon extract and dark rum.
• Mix together using the dough hook until everything is incorporated and the dough becomes smooth and shiny.
• Spread the dough out onto the greased and floured pan. Smooth the top over with a spatula and arrange the blanched almonds and glacé cherry halves over the top of the dough to decorate, creating a pattern to delineate the 12 serving sizes of the cake.
• Bake the cake for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Remove the cake from the oven, and let cool completely before cutting into squares and serving.