Sara Jenny’s Honey Cake

Sun, Sep 24, 1995
Hi Michelle! Hope you and your roommate are fine and enjoying cooler weather. Wishing you, as Aunt Becky always used to say, “Ah Sveet Year!” May everything happen for you just as you would like.
In the same vein, I tried a little Jewish cooking yesterday (why not, got nothing else to do. I’m still sick, and the weather has turned cold and rainy.) I tried a honey cake from a recipe in the paper (wow! turned out great).
Stay well and happy. We all look forward to seeing you in November!
Lots of love from Aunt Nina

From The Washington Post, September 20th, 1995 though a cursory web search suggests the recipe is from 1949
(16 servings)

Ingredients

1 cup honey
2 cups sugar
2 cups brewed coffee
1/2 cup vegetable oil plus oil for greasing pan
3 eggs
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Grease a 10 x 14 inch pan with oil
3. In a large mixing bowl combine the honey, sugar, coffee and vegetable oil.
4. Mix well and add the eggs, one at a time.
5. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves together and add to the honey mixture.
6. Pour into greased pan.
7. Bake in preheated oven 40-50 minutes.

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9/25/2014
I’m reviting and revising this recipe a little. I decided to try and make it into an apples an honey cake for Rosh Hashannah this year. Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 cup honey
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup brewed coffee
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
4 peeled, cored, and shredded Granny Smith apples

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Grease a pan (I now use a dedicatec mold pan but you can use a bundt cake or probably 3 5×9 loaf pans)
3. In a large mixing bowl combine the ingredients down through the eggs.
4. Sift the dry ingredients together through the allspice and add to the honey mixture.
5. Fold in the shredded apples
6. Pour into greased pan.
7. Bake in preheated oven 40 minutes for loaves. 60 Minutes for the mold and the bundt.
8. Let cool then upturn and dust with powdered sugar.