Oh, Honey

This Year’s Cake

Actually, this is the (5761/2000) cake, but its name remains This Year’s Cake. It is a traditional honey lekekh. I urge you to use buckwheat honey which gives the cake its distinctive flavor.

Sift dry ingredients together:

6 cups all-purpose flour (You may use part or all whole wheat pastry flour)

1 scant tablespoon ginger

1 tablespoon cinnamon

3/8 teaspoon cloves

Several scrapings of nutmeg

2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ cup cocoa

Blend together in processor or blender:

2 oranges (remove seeds and cores, use peel and pulp)

¼ cup ginger preserves

1 scant pound (about 1 ½ cups) buckwheat honey

1 ½ cups oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 tablespoons slivovitz

8 eggs (added at last minute)

Stir together

1 ounce semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 tablespoons instant coffee

½ cup boiling water

Stir the chocolate coffee into the orange-mix, and mix into the dry ingredients.

Fold in

3 grated apples (large, macintosh-type)

Bake in 3 or 4 cake pans, walnuts on top 450 for 5 minutes, 400 for five minutes, 350 for 20 minutes. Test for doneness.

Makes 3 large cakes, 3 dozen cupcakes, or 4 medium-sized cakes.

This cake benefits from resting, unrefrigerated, for one day, especially if you use whole wheat flour. It will keep for more than two weeks without refrigeration.

Best wishes for the New Year!

Here is an amazingly detailed beekeeper's lexicon for English, Italian, French and Spanish. Sorry I couldn't find a Yiddish beekeeper's lexicon. Yiddish for beekeeper is binen-tsier.
other highlights:
buckwheat--grano saraceno
buttercup-ranuncolo
cleaning-bee--ape-spazzina
honey-stomach--inglavie
shrike--averla