Honeycomb Pull Apart Cake

Do you have some special people coming over, a birthday celebration, or maybe you are going to your annual beekeepers' potluck? You'll do no wrong by serving this conversational piece. It is easy to make and fun to serve. The honey lemon glaze is especially tasty, and on a hot summer day, I suggest serving alongside a scoop of lemon sorbet or Italian ice. Either way, serving up this honeycomb cake is going to be a hit at your next gathering!

Prep
You'll need to purchase this Honeycomb novelty pan. It is made by Nordic Ware (very high quality heavy cast aluminum construction). Mine was purchased onsite at the King Arthur Flour Bake Store in Norwich, VT; however, I don't see it in their online store. The good news is that Williams-Sonoma and Amazon currently sell it.

Front side

Batter side

You'll need to pick up several ingredients if you don't already have them in your pantry. 

Love using local ingredients whenever possible!

Below is the recipe that came with the cake pan.*


Honey Lemon Cake
3 cups cake flour (I used King Arthur Cake Flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened (I used Cabot)
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 Tbsp finely grated lemon rind (I needed 2 large lemons)
1 cup sour cream (I used Cabot)

Glaze
3 Tbsp Honey (I used Heavenly Honey Apiary)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice (I only needed 1 lemon to get this)

Directions
Heat oven to 325° F. Grease and flour pan; set aside.

Tip:  Really get into each cell and side of pan. I used a pastry brush with liquid vegetable oil and floured liberally and tapped it all around and then tapped the excess into the sink.

In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside. 

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar on low speed until blended. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. 

Add eggs and beat until well blended.  

Add fl0ur mixture, sour cream and lemon rind; blend on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl often. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes. 

Spoon batter into prepared pan. 

Tip: I folded a kitchen hand towel in half and placed it on the kitchen counter. I then gently tapped the cake pan with the batter in it, to make sure that the batter settled into the crevice of each honeycomb cell.

See the over rack above pan? It's too low. Raise it or take out.

Bake for 45-55 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan.

Tip: Don't over bake, although I kept a very close eye on the baking, and I took it out as soon as the toothpick came out clean, I thought the outer edge pieces resembled a plain donut texture and the middle pieces were moister. 

Meanwhile, make glaze: in small saucepan, combine all glaze ingredients and heat over medium heat until sugar dissolves and glaze is warm. 

Honey lemon glaze

Gently run knife around edge

Bakes to high volume. Be mindful of oven rack placement.

Invert cake onto cooling rack and brush with honey glaze.

Placed wax paper underneath in preparation for glaze.

I gingerly brushed ample glaze on each honeycomb cell.

This was the pan after inverting -- Cleanup a cinch!

Tip: After glazing, I let the cake thoroughly cool for about 2 hours before I plated it, because the underside of the cake was still really warm to the touch. 

 Place on a decorative plate and serve!

*I don't see a copyright notice on the packaging so I'm sharing.

7/1/2013 update--Yikes I left out the sugar requirements. If you printed this recipe before then, you'll want to update your copy. I'm sorry about that!

7/1/2013 Another tip that I’m going to try next time that I bake the cake is to wrap a wet towel around the outer mold, clipped with a safety pin. I was told that this will keep the outer cake piece moist, as I thought they were more donut consistency because they cooked faster than the inside of the cake cells.