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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Can you use all purpose flour instead of cake flour? My family and I are snowed in at home but love sweets like this. Also do you think honey dust(which is dehydrated honey) can be used instead of sugar and it not collapse??
Hi Addie. A combination of ap flour and cornstarch can be used to replace cake flour. For each cup of cake flour you use 3/4 cup ap flour plus 2 Tablespoons cornstarch. This recipe uses 1 3/4 cups cake flour so you would need to use 1 1/3 cups ap flour plus 3 1/2 tablespoons corn starch. I would think dehydrated honey would probably work in place of the sugar.
This is, in fact, the perfect honey pound cake. I added a scant 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, with no other changes. The way the flavor blooms in the mouth is SO nice; each bite ends with such clear honey flavor, as though I’d just swallowed a spoonful of honey. Thank you so much for sharing with us!
Thank you so much for the recipe! The flavor turned out great. My only issue was that the pound cake got too dark/burned on the outside while the middle was raw. Any tips to avoid this? I double checked my pan size and used the 9×5 loaf pan. I would absolutely try this recipe again, but am not quite sure where I went wrong.
Is your loaf pan a dark color? The cake will brown more quickly in a dark pan than in a light pan. Also, do you know if your oven is running at the proper temp? I keep a thermometer in my oven because I know it can often run 25 degrees or more over the set temp.