Playing With the Food – III

I love honey bread – it’s a very typical treat in Brazil, a honey spice cake covered in chocolate. I’ve been searching for a good recipe for ages, but always end up with dry cakes, or without enough honey taste.

But is like Yoda would have said:

The answer always close it is…

I was organizing some old recipes and found a piece of paper with a very beautiful handwriting. It said: “Honigkuchen” and a recipe for honey bread. I think who gave us the paper was our German neighbour, Gisela, many years ago. Tested and approved – a very moist cake, with lots of honey taste.

Pão de Mel (24 squares)

• • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tbsp baking soda
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp grounded cloves
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup canola oil
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven 350 F. Butter and flour a 20 X 30cm pan.

In the bowl of the electric mixer, sift together flour, baking soda, sugar, brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon and nut meg. Whisk well.

Add oil, honey and milk and fold with a large spoon. Beta in the electric mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes until smooth.

Pour the batter in the pan and bake for approx. 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake come out clean.

Icing suggestions:

In the original recipe, the icing is a very simple sugar/milk glaze. 1 1/2 cups sugar, drop some milk very slowly until you have a thick cream consistency. Pour over the warm cake. Let cool and cut in squares.

Easy peasy: chop 250g milk chocolate. Distribute the chopped chocolate over the very hot cake – the heat will melt it and you can spread with a spatula. Let cool and cut.

Or, cut the cooled cake in squares and cover in tempered milk chocolate.