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).
Would you like to save this recipe?
We’ll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
I made it last night because I had a ton of honey and I didn’t know what to do with it. It was absolutely delicious! Not too sweet and you can really taste the honey, the texture is lovely as well. I did use a different kind of pan however, because my loaf pan seemed a bit too small for the amount of batter I got. I used a savarin mould instead and it was ready at 40-42 minutes. I decorated it with some confectioner’s sugar and some edible flowers. Thanks for the recipe! <3
Hi, I will be trying your recipe next week for my husband’s birthday. We have become sugar free in the past one year. Any ideas on how the cake might turn out without the sugar? I know i would have to reduce the baking temp to 325 and perhaps add some baking soda to help the cake to rise . So you any other tips or ideas ? Thanks in advance.
Chiamaka
Do you mean without the granulated sugar and only honey? Do you plan to replace the sugar with extra honey? If you read through the post you’ll see a photo of a cake I made with just honey. It did collapse and become gummy. Honey has extra liquid and the granulated sugar helps absorb some moisture. If you just eliminate the sugar and don’t add any extra honey the cake may be a bit tough since sugar tenderizes the cake.
Thanks so much for this recipe. I’ve been searching for honey base cake recipe for a client if mine that has intolerance to granulated sugar. I will definitely try this with exception of sugar. Hope it turns out well
Hello,
I will like to adopt your recipe, but I’m afraid I will be waiting egg whites, since I’m doubling the recipe on a large scale.
The recipe calls for 4 yolks… which means there will be be 4 egg whites left…
Since 2 eggwhites equals 1 large egg. Can I replace the 4 yolks in the recipe for 2 large eggs …
So that the total eggs called for in the recipe will be 5.
I know the formula was scientific balanced.
I was just thinking maybe using all whole eggs to avoid wastage will work out.
Thanks for your prompt reply
If you read through this post about eggs in cake batter you can get a lot of information about substituting eggs/whites/yolks. You could use 2 eggs instead of 4 yolks, but the texture of the cake won’t be as fine and velvety. Also, you can freeze the left over egg whites and use them later. Here’s a list of recipes that use extra egg whites.
Eileen,
What is the purpose of the granulated sugar in this recipe? I Love the Honey creation- I was trying to come up with one I can share with Non-Granulated sugar people for the holiday.
But without understanding the purpose of the sugar, I thought I better check. I was considering birch tree xylitol – but again, without knowing any work the sugar is doing, I wasn’t sure if I should risk it. I don’t use any nutrasweet or splenda, or any erythritol products. Stevia is bitter. Not sure about monkfruit sugar- never tried it. I’m open to ideas if I am avoiding granulated sugar. Thanks for your hard work here! This is fantastic!
Did you read through the post or just the recipe? I explain a little in the body of the post why I use a mixture of sugar and honey instead of just honey. There’s more information in this post about sugar in cake batter. To make a cake with just honey more adjustments would be needed for the recipe to bake up properly. That would require some recipe testing so I couldn’t say off the bat.