A rich vanilla honey cake - celebrating birthdays

June sees the most birthdays in our family. The first week brings my husband's birthday; the second week brings my brother-in-law's birthday and the third week brings my mother's birthday. Unfortunately, I cannot bake a cake for my mother since we do not live close by, but I always bake a cake for my husband. This year I also baked a cake for my cousin brother-in-law when I got the chance. I made a honey cake for my husband's birthday based on a recipe I had bookmarked long ago. Everyone absolutely loved it, especially my daughter. She requested that I repeat the same cake the following week. That is a rare occurrence because I have so many bookmarked recipes and repeating a recipe so close to the previous attempt is not what I like to do. But the cake certainly has that comforting taste and texture that leaves you wanting more. And more we had, the following week.

husband's birthday cake	b-i-l's birthday cake

My daughter doctored up leftover cake slices after my husband's birthday with buttercream frosting and lots of sprinkles. Look at the crumb! It's gorgeous.

The first time, I made it with one and a half cups of flour and it was enough for 10 servings (that should feed about 5 people because everyone will want 2 servings). It baked well in about 30 minutes. The second time, I doubled the recipe and used a bigger pan but it still ended up being small for the amount of batter and I had to bake for an hour to get the cake to set in the middle.
Lesson learned: fill the cake pan only half way up.
Baking for an hour has the danger of making the edges of the cake very dry. I was very worried about that. But the cake ended up being great. This cake is soaked in honey syrup while still warm which helped avoid dryness.
A good practice I follow: Cover the cake pan with foil if the top browns up before the cake is cooked through. This also helped to avoid overcooking the cake on the edges.

Vanilla Honey Cake
adapted from: Indian bakery style honey cake

Ingredients:

For cake
	1.5 cups	flour (maida)
	1.5 tsp	baking powder
	1/2 tsp	salt
	1/2 cup	ghee
	1/4 cup	powdered sugar
	3	eggs
	1.5 tsp	pure vanilla extract
	3 tbsp	milk
For syrup
	1/4 cup	honey
	1/4 cup	water

Method

• Beat the ghee and sugar together till it lightens in colour and looks fluffy.
• Add in the eggs one at a time. Mix well after each addition.
• Add the vanilla extract into the mixture and mix it well.
• In a separate bowl, sieve together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold in gently.
• Add the milk to bring batter to a dropping consistency.
• Pour into a greased and floured 8 inch round cake pan.
• Bake at 180 C for 30 minutes.
• Let it cool in the pan for 5 minutes. After that turn it over on a wire rack to cool.
• Prepare the syrup by combining honey and water. Bring it to a boil. Let it simmer for 5 minutes.
• Move the cake into the pan again after 10 minutes of cooling on the wire rack. Prick holes all over the cake.
• Pour the honey syrup evenly all over the cake.
• Serve after a couple of hours.

Notes:

The time required to bake the cake might vary depending on your individual oven. Prick the center of the cake with a toothpick. If there is no wet or semi-wet batter sticking to it, the cake is ready to come out of the oven.

Pouring the syrup is an important part of the recipe. It makes the cake like honey obviously while also making it moist.

A larger cake will need more time to cool on the wire rack. When the cake is warm (not hot) to touch, it is time to pour the honey syrup.