Absolutely Perfect Honey Pound Cake
Honey Pound Cake is a variation of the Pound Cake Recipe cake recipe that I perfected after months of testing. This honey cake has a lovely tawny color and caramel flavor.
Table of contents
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Cake Flour – Bleached cake flour makes the softest cake.
- Honey – Adds wonderful flavor, color and sweetness to the cake.
- Sugar – A little sugar is needed to maintain the cake structure. Sugar absorbs some of the moisture from the honey to keep the cake from collapsing.
- Baking Powder – To lighten the cake crumb.
- Eggs – Extra egg yolks emulsify the batter so it can hold more moisture. The yolks also enrich the cake.
Process Photos
See the recipe card for detailed measurements and instructions.
- Whisk together the eggs, yolks, honey and the vanilla in a small bowl. Set it aside.
- Sift the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.
- Mix the dry ingredients to combine.
- With the mixer running on low, toss the softened butter into the dry ingredients.
- Mix until the flour is coated with butter.
- Mix on medium high for 2-3 minutes to aerate the batter.
- Add the egg mixture and mix until smooth. Scrape the bowl in between to avoid lumps of thick batter.
- Pour the batter into a buttered and floured loaf pan, Bundt pan or angel food cake pan.
- Use the tip of a small spatula to make a trench down the center of the cake.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool at least 20 minutes before turning out of the pan.
Storage
This cake will keep for 4-5 days, covered, at room temperature. Do not refrigerate the baked cake. Leftover cake can be frozen for up to a month.
The baking science behind this recipe
If you love the science behind the recipe, read through my “Cake Batter Course“. Over 7 classes you can learn all about the ingredients and mixing methods for cake batter.
It’s pretty detailed stuff, but what you learn about baking can be applied to all your recipes, not just cake batter. And it’s free here on Baking Sense.
While I was baking test cakes for the sugar class, I baked a cake using honey instead of sugar. Because I used all honey and no sugar, and didn’t make any other changes to the cake, the cake baked up dense and collapsed a little. It looks pretty awful, doesn’t it?
How did I fix it? In a nutshell, adding extra egg yolks and using chlorinated cake flour enabled me to add more liquid (honey) to the batter.
This recipe includes both honey and granulated sugar. The sugar also takes up some of the extra liquid from the honey.
If you love this recipe as much as I do, please consider giving it a 5-star review.
Honey Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs (room temp)
- 4 egg yolks (room temp)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 oz honey (½ cup)
- 8 oz cake flour (1 ¾ cups, see note)
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 oz granulated sugar (½ cup)
- 9 oz unsalted butter (room temp)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Butter and flour a 9"x5" loaf pan or Bundt pan.
- Combine 3 large eggs, 4 egg yolks, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 6 oz honey in a small bowl, whisk to combine and set aside.
- Sift together 8 oz cake flour, ¼ teaspoon table salt and 1 teaspoon baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add 4 oz granulated sugar to the flour and mix at low speed for 30 seconds. Add 9 oz unsalted butter to the flour and mix until combined. Increase the speed to medium high and mix for a full 2-3 minutes. The batter will lighten in color and texture. If using a hand mixer add another minute to the mixing time.
- Scrape the bowl and beater thoroughly. On low speed, add the eggs in 3 increments, scraping the bowl after each addition. Mix just until the eggs are incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake at 350°F until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (about 55 minutes).
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Just baked this cake. Your recipe was so clear & reasons given for everything, so thanks for that. In fact, it just made so much sense, I doubled your recipe & baked an extra cake to give to friends. We’ve been searching for a great honey pound cake recipe to use some of our first honey harvest. So our very first jar of honey went right into this batter & YUMMY! I’ll be baking this cake again for sure. Finally, a great honey pound cake that really tastes like HONEY (because most recipes seem to add only 2 TBSP of honey). Your recipe is a keeper!
Oh wow, that’s so nice to hear, JoAnn. I worked on this recipe a bit to balance getting enough honey flavor, yet keeping the traditional pound cake texture. One of my favorite things about this cake (besides the flavor, of course) is the pretty caramel color. Thanks for reading!
Smells great. Sadly the middle fell in… for those in colorado, best to use regular flour. Cake flour is temperamental here. Also, cooking time is roughly 43 minutes for that. Otherwise delicious!
Hi Shelby, unfortunately, I don’t have any experience with high altitude baking. Glad you like the flavor.
Hi,
Thanks for this honey recipe; I am hoping to bake a cake without absolutely no sugar of any kind. Do you have any recipe recommendations?
Thanks,
Sharon
Hi Sharon, Do you mean no refined sugar? How will you sweeten the cake? Are you open to using honey, maple syrup or fruit to sweeten? Because a cake with no sweetness at all is bread, basically. Also, sugar doesn’t only sweeten a cake it also tenderizes the cake. That’s why cake is softer than bread.
Hi Eileen, Natural sugar is fine. A moist lemon cake recipe without refined would be ideal. 🙂 Thanks again.
Never baked with honey, but will give it a trial and get back to you. God bless.
Great, let me know how you like it.
That cake looks perfect! And I love that you used honey, healthier for kids! Can I use all honey while using less… what.. maybe less butter or eggs? I’m not sure, have you tried another change to make it look and taste good with using all honey?!
I also love your cake classes, thank you for sharing such helpful information, must have been so exhausting for you, all those trials!
Hi Julia, if you read the “sugar” class you’ll see a cake made with all honey. Because there was so much moisture it kind of collapsed. You can play with using less butter and/or eggs but it will change the texture.
Thank you, Eileen!