Ukrainian Christmas Honey Cake (Medivnyk) Recipe

1. In a small saucepan, mix together honey, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm.
2. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Lightly coat two (8x4-inch) loaf pans with cooking spray.
3. In a medium bowl, combine raisins, currants, dates, nuts of choice, and 2 tablespoons of the flour. Mix well and set aside.
4. In a separate medium bowl, mix together remaining flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

1. In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together butter or parve margarine and brown sugar. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
2. Mix in the lukewarm honey from step 1, above. Add flour and coffee alternately until well mixed. Stir in fruit-nut mixture from step 2, above . Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter.
3. Bake about 1 1/2 hours or until toothpick tests clean. Allow to stand at room temperature, covered, a few days before serving.

How to Use Honey in Baking

Replacing sugar with honey in recipes is not a one-to-one conversion. When baking, use pure honey for up to half the granulated sugar in a recipe. Additionally, for each 1 cup of honey used:

• Reduce any liquid by 1/4 cup
• Add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• Reduce oven temperature by 25 degrees

Cooking with honey has its own rules. Check them out here.

More Dessert Recipes Using Honey

• Vegan Jewish Honey Cake Recipe
• Croatian Honeybread Recipe
• Slovak Sweet Bobalki Recipe
• Nut Roll Recipe
• Croatian Fig Tart Recipe