honey-cake recipe

[in honour of the bee that made the honey for this cake]

Medivnyk

(Ukrainian Christmas Honey-Cake)

You will need:

4 eggs, at room temperature & separated into yolks & whites

3 tbsp butter

1 cup of honey (preferably a wild or buckwheat honey, but clover is still good too)

3 cups of flour

1 cup of sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves (optional)

1/2 cup very strong black tea (steep two bags of a breakfast tea for 10 minutes in 1/2 cup water)

1/2 cup sour cream

the zest & juice of one good-sized orange

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

(You can double these ingredients, but be warned that you will need a large mixing bowl/cauldron to mix it all, so I am presented you with the halved version.)

To make:

1. First, heat the honey in a saucepan on the stove until boiling, then remove it from heat to let it cool. Also, ensure that the oven is pre-heating to 325 degrees F.

2. Beat the egg yolks & butter together until fluffy & well-blended. Set aside for a moment while you sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, & cinnamon (& cloves) together in another bowl. When this is done, add the yolk-butter & cooled honey, as well as the cup of sugar. Mix well until smooth-ish & blended.

3. Mix together the tea, sour cream, orange juice & zest, and then add to the mash of goodness forming in the bowl.

4. Take the egg whites & beat them until they form stiff peaks; add this to the batter & mix very well, along with the chopped walnuts. You may want to mash it all around with your hands to ensure that there are no lumps or islands of flour. Be sure that there is someone around to spatulize your hands after.

5. Pour into the loaf pan(s) that you have already buttered & floured. It's better to make multiple cakes & pour less into each pan, or you will have towering cakes that will be much like volcanoes, with molten uncooked magma in the centre.

6. Ensure that the oven is pre-heated (& indeed, still turned on!); put in the cakes for about 1 hour. Don't open the oven before 30 minutes to check on them, or extra goodness will escape. If you are making smaller ones, poke liberally with a toothpick at about 45 minutes. There will of course be no cake-magma in the middle when they are done, & the outside will be a pleasant golden colour.

7. Cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes, then turn them out & cool a bit more. Medivnyk -- duzhe smachnyj z maslom, i takozh z chaskoju chaju! [Medivnyk is quite tasty with butter & a cup of tea!]

This is a usual dessert after the 12 dishes of Sviat' Vechir on Ukrainian Christmas. Honey has always been cherished commodity in Ukraine; also, in folklore, bees are sacred messengers to the Divine/the sun, & honey is a bit like liquefied light.