Mary Pearl's Mother Millie's Honey Cake

Mary Pearl’s mother Millie's Honey Cake

Prep time: 20 minutes
Baking time: at least 1 hour
Cooling time: at least 30 minutes

Ingredients:
1 jar (500 g) honey
1 cup sugar 4 eggs
1 1/2 cups Self Raising flour
3/4 cup of oil, 4 teasp ground cloves
1 cup of cooled tea, brewed with 4 teabags. Leave teabags in till ready to use.
2 tablespoons of instant coffee powder 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder

Directions:
1. Allow teabags to steep in hot water, leave them in till tea is good and strong before removing, let it cool while you prepare the batter. This gives the cake its colour, so it needs to be dark. (10 minutes or so)

2. Cream together eggs and sugar till sugar is more-or-less dissolved,

3. Add honey and mix in thoroughly, slowly add oil (slowly is the trick. Pour a bit at a time and mix well before poring next bit. Otherwise cake will be soggy), mix well.

4. Stir in cloves, cocoa and coffee powder, then slowly add cooled cup of tea. Add flour last of all (in increments).

5. Grease a deep round tin or a ring tin with a little oil and then put baking paper on the bottom of the pan. Pour in the batter and bake in moderate oven (350°F/ 170°C) for about an hour or until ready. In my oven it was closer to 90 minutes.

Test the cake for readiness with a for or toothpick, before switching off the stove, because it may look brown early on and still be uncooked inside; it depends on your particular oven. Cake may be left in the oven for a while after switching off, to finish cooking.

It's a moist cake and tastes even better a couple of days after baking. Mary never had a chance to freeze this popular cake, but I suspect it can be frozen. No left overs here either!

Related links: Food and Drink recipes dessert