Mini Pumpkin Blossom Honey Cakes

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began last night at sundown. Honey plays a significant role in Rosh Hashanah celebrations, signifying hopes for a sweet new year.  Apples or challah dipped in honey is popular, as is honey cake. Because of the time of year, honey cake typically includes flavors associated with fall. My mom had given me a Pumpkin Blossom Honey recently and I thought this would be the perfect way to use it.

I adapted my recipe from one found on Epicurious and gave it my own pumpkin-y spin. Pumpkin Blossom Honey is created by bees that solely pollinate pumpkins and pumpkin blossoms. It has a darker amber color and has a really nice spice flavor at the end.  I thought it would work great with some traditional fall spices thrown in!

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour (or all purpose flour)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil (I used sunflower oil)
• 1 cup Pumpkin Blossom honey
• 8 oz lukewarm pumpkin coffee (I used Green Mountain’s)
• The zest of one orange

Chocolate glaze:

• 1/2 cup shaken canned unsweetened coconut milk (not light)
• 2 teaspoons light corn syrup
• 4 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped
• Flaky sea salt for garnish, optional

The original recipe called for a bundt pan. And I SWORE I had one. But it must have grown legs and ran off. So I adapted this recipe to make mini cakes. I made them both in a muffin pan and cupcake pan. The cupcakes make individual servings and the muffins work great to be shared by two (or can be for one hungry person, no judgment here).

First, brew your coffee. Set it aside to cool. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray your muffin/cupcake pans with baking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cardamom.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs.

Add in the sugar, oil, honey, coffee, and zest and whisk until combined. (This might take a bit of effort and some patience. Oil doesn’t like to be combined with basically anything but the sugar will help it all bind together.)

I want to mention here one of my favorite OXO tools, the adjustable measuring cup.  This thing is brilliant. You just turn the knob to line up with how much of the ingredient you need (so 1 cup of honey) and fill to the liquid or solid line (both are listed on the cup). The reason I love this tool so much is that it is perfect for things like honey. Super sticky or just plan frustrating ingredients like honey have met their match with this. You just turn the plunger to expel everything in the measuring cup. No more fighting with the ingredients, trying to scrape out the very last bit in there!

Back to the recipe. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and add the wet mixture. Whisk until smooth.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan of choice.

Bake for 30-35 minutes if using a muffin tin and 20-25 minutes if using a cupcake tin. You want the cupcakes/muffins to be springy and for a toothpick inserted in the center to come out clean.

Let the cakes cook in the pan on a rack for 20 minutes. Use a spatula to remove the cakes and add to a rack to cool completely.

When ready to serve, make your glaze. Add the coconut milk and corn syrup to a small pan and bring to a simmer, stirring to combine. (Corn syrup is another little bugger of an ingredient. No worries, OXO has a mini adjustable measuring cup!)

Once the mixture is simmering (this happens quite quickly), remove from heat and stir in the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted. The longer you allow the mixture to sit before using it, the thicker it will get. You want to be able to pour it, so I prefer mine to be quite thin.

Transfer the mini cakes to individual dishes and pour some of the chocolate glaze over them, letting it drip down the sides.

Sprinkle a pinch of flaky sea salt on top and serve.

Aren’t these fun?

I gave one of the muffin sized ones to my boyfriend to taste test, left the room to remove the cupcakes from the oven, went back, and the entire darn thing was gone.

I guess it was tasty! I tried one of the cupcakes for myself and they were SO good! Obviously sweet, but not overly so. They are quite decadent though so it’s amazing my boyfriend polished off a muffin sized one on his own.

The pumpkin pie spice flavors come through and really enhance the honey flavor. I absolutely loved the chocolate glaze on top because what isn’t better with chocolate?

Honey cake honestly gets better as it sits so package up what you don’t eat and bring them out again the next night!