Honey Cake

My mother-in-law is famous for her Croatian Honey cake, a rich, 7-layer confection of light as air honey cake, creamy, sweet filling off-set by tart preserves. Her recipe has been in her family for generations and she very kindly passed it along to me several years ago. You can imagine my surprise when I recently found a very similar version online! When I made it for Easter at my husband’s request, I stayed true to the family recipe: no rum and no cocoa layer…the latter is replaced with a layer of Croatian red plum preserves….and wildflower honey is the honey of choice!

There are only 2 components to the cake: a thick batter that is spread thinly on a cookie sheet (4x) that bakes into a soft cookie, and a filling composed of butter, icing sugar and cooked cream of wheat cereal. (No one can ever guess what the filling is!). Assembly is a little tricky as the cake layers are fragile; I’ve learned to bake them on parchment for easy release.

This cake needs to be made at least a day before serving to allow the baked layers to soften and the honey flavour to develop.

The finished cake is 12” x 15” and once the edges are trimmed, can easily be cut into 80 pieces “ great for a crowd. The cake freezes beautifully and I find that the texture and flavour improve after thawing so I usually make it weeks before it’s needed.