Gentle Gingered Honey Cake

p.s. i forgot to say that my experience was evidence that your baking knowledge and intuition is excellent; you might just consider being more confident and bolder in putting your flavor ideas to use!

ct, i always enjoy seeing your work on 52, but i did not find this recipe noteworthy. I wouldn't have sent these notes to you because they may sound too harsh, but you asked my experience. I have no intention to be hurtful and I did not re-write this to be more tactful, so plse forgive my candor.My testing notes for Orange Scented Ginger Honey Cake:
Recipe Notes:
Previous to this recipe testing, I had spent countless hours reading about Honey Cakes and wanting to try one. They all contained coffee, oj and honey, which really appealed to me. But unfortunately, Honey Cakes have a very bad reputation; dryness being the ubiquitous complaint. Then I learned that cookbook author, Marcy Goldman, had solved this problem by upping the typical amount of oil to equal half the volume of flour. Her results were raved everywhere. While creamtea described her mom's cake as moist, I decided to side with the multitudes, and I used 2 1/4 cups oil(almost 5 times more than her recipe for 1/2 cup) which is half her flour volume of 4 1/2 cups. Goldman's cake had also included whisky in its liquid, so I did the same, using the same ratio.

After tasting the batter, I found it too sweet, so I attempted to assuage that problem. It was too late to omit some of the sugar, as many have done in similar Honey Cake recipes, so I added 2 tsp kosher salt (none had been called for) , 16 more turns of freshly ground black pepper, 4 teaspoons espresso powder, and 1 lemon's zest, all of which helped cut the sweetness and emphasize their flavors more. To bring out the nuttiness (an element that distinguished creamtea's Honey Cake from most others), I doubled creamtea's ground nuts, using pecans for the addition instead of the original walnuts. I followed all her other ingredient amounts but I used half white AP flour and half white whole wheat flour instead of all white flour.
Among the optional additions that Creamtea had listed, all of which would help make her recipe unique, I added 4 T. total candied orange and ginger to one pan's batter. Then, for my own contribution, I added 4 T. total candied lemon and chopped dry prunes to the other pan.

I baked the batter in two 9 x 13 pans in my convection oven and it was done after
~ 40 minutes, instead of the 60 minutes for creamtea.

Header:
Honey Cakes are tricky things. You are more likely to hear about dry ones than good ones.
Creamtea's recipe stands out from others because of its nuts, orange zest and candied ginger and orange peel, but , in order for them to really be noticed, she needed to dramatically increase their amounts. Likewise, in order to achieve the moist cake she desired, she needed to drastically up her oil.
My baking experience and taste buds told me that if I had followed creamtea's recipe to the letter, it would have resulted in a drier, too sweet, less distinguished dish. Well conceived flavoring elements were present but too scant to make enough of an impression. The major changes that I made were: increasing her oil fivefold, introducing salt, lemon zest and whiskey (where there had been none) and upping the pepper, espresso powder, and nuts. Minor changes were the addition of small amounts of candied lemon peel and chopped prunes to one batter , and chopped candied orange peel and ginger to the other batter.

The resulting cake is a medium dark brown with a moist interior and domed top. I tasted it after it had sat for a day. It is sufficiently sweet. The nuts are somewhat detectable and do add to the texture. For me, even with the additions I made, it tastes like a mild moist spice cake without stronger elements. I had expected it to taste complex with noticeable citrus and fruit elements, but that did not happen for me. Were I to make it again and want it to stand above all the other Honey Cakes out there, I would triple or quadruple the nuts and dried and candied fruits. I also did not taste the honey in the cake, but I glazed part of the cake with a liberal amount of heated honey, and tasted it the next day (2 days after baking) and that really helped the honey to be noticeable. I'm not sure if the whiskey made any difference in flavor.

------------------------------

CHANGES
ADDED TO ALL:
1/8 C IRISH WHISKEY
2 TSP ESPRESSO POWDER
1 LEMONS ZEST
1/2 cup ground pecans
INCL TOTAL 1/4 C OJ
1 TSP KOSHER SALT
8 TURNS BL PEPPER
----------------------TO HALF, I ADDED:
1 T M PRUNES
1T CANDIED LEMON ZEST
-----------------TO HALF I ADDED
1 T CANDIED OR PEEL
1 T CANDIED GINGER

hahaha! I TOLD you it was a great recipe! Congrats on 'making it to the test stage'! And guess who signed up to test it for her first testing yet? Yep, little ol' me. At least you know I'll be ruthlessly honest, eh?! I'm wicked psyched; I had already printed it out and moved the KitchenAid into place, and I have all the ingredients. (Maybe I'll surprise My Love and also make my Hermits, which have many shared ingreds!)
Congrats again.

ct, this is a LOVELY recipe. my only caveat (yep, i'm a broken record on his one) is that it lends itself so well to multigrain flours; that's what I will try out. At least White Whole Wheat, and maybe Rye or wheatgerm. The photo perfectly illustrates how moist it is, and I LOVE it that you used coffee and citrus, and a good amount of nuts! I have been surfing Honey Cake recipes for some years, so I think yours has finally hooked me! Thx so much for this inspiring recipe!