Honey and Walnut Loaf Cake

Here’s a bit of mid-week food porn to help you through hump day. I don’t know about you but this week is dragging, and I realised the other day I’ve not had a day’s holiday from work since Christmas! No wonder I’m flagging a bit!

Anyway, I made this deliciously moist honey and walnut cake on Mother’s Day weekend to enjoy with a cup of tea with my mum! The cake itself is already moist thanks to the addition of honey and natural yoghurt, but is finished off to perfection with a sticky honey syrup drizzled over the top. Amazing!

It’s a recipe by Hummingbird Bakery, and they’ve yet to disappoint me!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 190g unsalted butter
• 190g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 190g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 25g natural yogurt
• 2 tbsp. runny honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 60g chopped walnuts

The method:

1.  Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Whisk the eggs into the mixture one at a time.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixture in two parts, folding in until fully mixed.
4. Mix in the yoghurt, vanilla extract and 1 tbsp. honey, and stir in the walnuts.
5. Grease a 23cm loaf tin and dust with flour. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake on 170°C for about 1 hour or until golden and firm on top, and a skewer comes out clean when inserted. As usual with bigger cakes I compensated for my tiny hot oven by lowering the temperature slightly and baking for longer than I’ve said.
6. Just before the cake is finished in the oven start preparing the syrup. Heat the remaining 1 tbsp. honey in a pan with 50ml water. Bring to the boil and reduce by about half.
7. Take the cake out of the oven and drizzle the honey syrup over the top.
8. Allow it to completely cool inside the tin before turning out and enjoying with a cup of tea!

This was actually a very simple recipe and well worth it. Yum!