Medivnyk: A Honey of a Cake

Sweet little honey cake drizzled with glaze

A few weeks ago my mom, who is a funny, warm and well-intentioned eighty-one year old, started talking about honey cake and how she’d like to make one on a day when she was feeling up to it. With that, she planted a seed. (I think her intentions may have been a touch calculated that day, but what the heck, I love her and I love to make her things.)

It’s been a long, long time since I have made honey cake, but I knew just the recipe I wanted to use and headed for my recipe box. There I found the batter-spattered card: “Never Fail Medivnyk (Ukrainian Honey Cake).” It’s a Mme Jehane Benoit recipe, originally published in 1970 in The Canadiana Cookbook: A Complete Heritage of Canadian Cooking. The recipe appeared in the Saskatchewan section of the cookbook and actually called for Saskatchewan or Manitoba honey. Luckily, my neighbour is an apiarist so I had real Manitoba honey in my pantry.

Since this was for my mom, I wanted to make a few small cakes that would better suit her needs than one large loaf, bundt or tube cake. I have a Nordic Ware® Multi-Mini Bundt pan that makes six cute, little sculpted bundt cakes. I only tried the pan once and then put it on the shelf. My recollection is that whatever I had baked in it, stuck in the pan and/or the pan was tough to clean. But I could picture how sweet the cake would look made in these pretty shapes and persevered – generously coating every nook and cranny of the pan with butter. (The recipe actually made enough batter to fill the fancy pan plus two four-inch springform pans.) The buttering up paid off. Five of the six cakes turned out great and the sixth only had a few points missing. I’m already thinking about what little cakes I’ll bake next in my mini bundt pan. (Incidentally, if you want to helpful information about cake pan sizes, check out the Joy of Baking.)

For the medivnyk taste test, I fearlessly asked two genuine Ukrainians - our good friends Barb and Larry. They gave the honey cake a thumbs up, and Barb said it reminded her of the honey cakes her mom used to make. Mme Benoit and I are honoured.

I’ve rewritten the original recipe very slightly here to make it a little easier to follow, and I included a Lemon Honey Glaze recipe just in case you’re feeling fancy.

Now get yourself some honey and take some time to create and enjoy this homemade treat. Mme Benoit wrote, “It would keep well one month, well wrapped in transparent paper. Keep it in a cool place. It improves with age.” That’s good to know, but I am sure these little cakes won’t be around that long.

MA's Medivnyk

Ready to make a honey cake

Adding the cooled honey

Preheat oven to 325º F.

1 cup honey

3 cups flour

1 tsp soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

½ cup strong coffee, cooled

1 tsp vanilla

grated rind and juice of one orange

2 tbsp butter

1 cup sugar

4 eggs, separated

Generously coat pan(s) with butter or solid shortening. This is especially important if you are using a shaped cake pan. This makes one 12-cup Bundt or tube cake, one large loaf cake, or six to eight smaller cakes.

Bring the honey to a boil and then cool it.

Sift the flour with the soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Do this twice.

Combine coffee with vanilla and the grated rind and juice of the orange.

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.

Beginning to fold in egg whites

Add the cooled honey to butter and sugar.

Beat the egg yolks and add to honey/butter mixture.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and coffee mixture to the egg yolk/honey/butter mixture.

Beat egg whites until stiff and then fold them into the batter.

Pour the batter into prepared pan(s).

Cool on rack

Bake about 45 minutes for loaf pan or single tube pan; about 25 minutes for mini-cake pans. Use cake tester or skewer to test for doneness.

Cool upright in pan for 10 minutes. Unmold and cool on cake rack.

Drizzle with Lemon Honey Glaze, if desired.

Printable Recipe for MA's Medivnyk

MA’s Lemon Honey Glaze

½ cup icing sugar

Ready for the taste test

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp honey

Mix all ingredients together, pressing out any little lumps of icing sugar.

Drizzle over cakes, quick breads or muffins for some sweet citrus tang.

Printable Recipe for MA's Lemon Honey Glaze