Honeycake's Honey Cakes
The cakes from the Roman's Game books — the ones their mother made, the ones Tam calls the best in the valley — written down and published for the first time.
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ginger
- A pinch of salt
- ½ cup butter, soft — plus a little more for the tin
- ½ cup honey — plus a spoonful or two more, for brushing
- 1 egg
- A splash of vanilla
- ¼ cup milk
Method
- Heat your oven to 350°F / 175°C. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt together in a big bowl.
- In a second bowl, cream the soft butter with the honey until pale and smooth.
- Beat in the egg and the vanilla.
- Fold the dry ingredients into the butter mixture with the milk — gently, a little at a time, just until no dry flour shows.
- Spoon the batter evenly into the 12 cups of the tin, filling each cup about two-thirds full — and get the tin straight into the oven once it is mixed.
- Bake 16–20 minutes, until the tops are golden and springy and a skewer poked into the centre of a cake comes out clean.
- Warm a spoonful or two of honey and brush it over the hot tops. Rest a few minutes, then loosen them gently with a knife — honey cakes stick — and eat warm.
Willa's notes: Butter still fridge-cold? Cut it small and rest it by the warm oven a few minutes; it'll behave. Honey the thick kind? It just takes its time joining in — keep folding, gently. And if yours look lumpy, so do hers. That's home baking.