Most cake is sweetened with white sugar, which tastes of nothing but sweet. Ours is sweetened mostly with honey from the twelve hives on the hay meadows, and it tastes of the summer the bees had.
What the bees bring
In May the bees work the hawthorn in the hedges and the honey is pale and delicate. By July it is clover and field beans, golden and rounder. The last honey of the year comes from the ivy on the old barn and is dark, almost savoury.
What it does to a cake
Honey keeps a cake moist for days longer than sugar, browns more deeply in the oven and carries the taste of butter and walnuts further. It is also less sweet, spoon for spoon, so we use a little more and the cake is no sweeter for it.
A honey cake baked in June and one baked in October are two different cakes. We think that is the point.
Why not always
Honey is heavier and wetter than sugar, so not every recipe takes it. The sponge stays a sponge, with caster sugar and our own eggs; the honey goes into the honey cake, the flapjacks and the cream for the scones.
