Serve This Spiced Honey Cake Recipe For Breakfast or Dessert

This honey cake is an absolute must for your Rosh Hashanah table. It is a sweet, simple Bundt cake with subtle flavors of honey, warm spices, and orange zest. The texture is moist on the inside with a slightly crispy exterior.

While I love to make this recipe to ring in the New Year, it is really great for any occasion. The warm spices are perfect for fall and winter and you can serve it as a dinner party dessert, a snack cake, or at breakfast with a cup of hot tea or coffee.

Honey and Rosh Hashanah

Honey cake is a staple of Rosh Hashanah (also known as the Jewish New Year) because honey symbolizes a sweet and fruitful year ahead. It is customary for Jews to dip apples in honey during Rosh Hashanah festivities. 

I make this honey cake for my family every year and it magically disappears from our Rosh Hashanah table in seconds!

Tips for Making Honey Cake

• Grease your cake pan very generously. There is nothing more heartbreaking than inverting your cake only to watch it fall apart. I grease my bundt pan with butter and use a pastry brush to make sure that I get the butter into every little crevice of the pan.
• Don’t over-mix your batter. This will result in a chewy cake. Stop mixing when the ingredients are just combined.
• Remove the cake from the pan while it is still warm. I allow it to cool for 10 minutes before inverting it onto a plate.
• Use good honey. Honey is the strongest flavor in this cake, so use a high-quality honey that you really love.

Put Your Stamp On It

You can easily adjust the flavors in this cake to suit your preferences. The spices can be swapped out for spices of your choice, like ginger, cardamom, or star anise. You can also leave out the orange zest if desired. For some crunch, add 1 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans to the cake batter.

More Bundt Pan Bakes

• Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
• Best Fresh Apple Bundt Cake
• Chocolate Bourbon Cake
• Rum Cake
• Marbled Chocolate Bundt Cake

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Grease a 10-inch non-stick Bundt pan with a generous coating of butter, making sure to get in all of the crevices.

Mix the dry ingredients:

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Mix the wet ingredients:

Add the butter and honey to a stand mixer or hand mixer with beater attachments. Mix on medium speed until combined. Add the orange zest and vanilla and mix on medium speed until incorporated, about 1 minute.

Add the eggs to the butter mixture and mix on medium speed until combined. Add the milk and mix again.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients:

Add half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed until just incorporated. Repeat with the remainder of the dry ingredients.

Bake:

Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 35 minutes. 

Allow the finished cake to cool for 10 minutes before inverting it onto a plate. Serve warm.

If you have leftover honey cake, you can wrap it in plastic wrap and store it at room temperature for up to 3 days. I do not recommend putting this cake in the fridge as it tends to dry out.

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