This cake is extremely easy make, and people seem to love it.
Dry Ingredients:
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder [b]
- ½ tsp fresh lemon peel [a]
- ½ tsp fresh orange peel [a]
- a pinch of salt
- a pinch of ginger
- a pinch of clove
- a pinch of all spice
- a pinch of nutmeg
- optional: ½ tsp lemon flavor
- optional: ½ tsp orange flavor
Wet Ingredients:
- ⅜ cup strong tea [c]
- 1 cup sugar
- ⅓ cup oil
- ½ cup honey
- ½ cup sour cream (the real deal)
- 1 large egg
Optional:
- ½ (generous) cup of Walnuts (or Pecans)
Method
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Combine and mix flour and baking soda as well as other dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
- Combine and mix sugar, honey and other wet ingredients in a large/mixer bowl.
- Add dry ingredients into wet mixture and mix.
- When all is combined, add nuts.
- Pour mixture into a well greased loaf pan (or ungreased silicon pan) [8x4x4”] [d]
- Bake for an hour [d] until center of cake is “dry” [e].
Comments
- I have in the past used dry orange and lemon peels. The end result is inferior. If you use dried peels put generous amounts. the dried peel is not as fragrant as the fresh one.
- speaking of generous measurement, I love cinnamon, and always measure it liberally. Other spice I measure exactly of even less. Beware of the clove for it is strong and will take over.
- To make strong tea, I use one bag of English Breakfast, and let it steep for at least 4 minutes. Before you add the tea, don’t forget to take the tea bag out… Duh!
- The cake has to thoroughly cool down. Even then it is very tricky to get it in one piece. Waiting overnight seems to improve chances. It is easier to extract from a silicone pan, but then you have to find the right knife to run on the side of the pan to loosen the cake without hurting the pan. The other option is to bake it in a Pyrex pan and serve it directly from the pan. I have been toying with the idea of lining with parchment at least in one direction, but don’t remember actually doing it.
- The cake is very moist, so one has to bake it until it is firm enough and brown enough (I think a toothpick in the center should come out “dry” = no doughy mixture). In my kookie oven (which I bought because it was black, and not because it was a good one), it takes an hour. In my experience my oven loses heat faster than better ovens, and takes 10% longer to achieve the right results . I would check the cake after 50 minutes just to be on the safe side.