Honey Bundt Cake
you can be a genius and also have no idea what you are doing
things you’ll need: flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, clove, orange juice, coffee, whiskey, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla, and honey.
incidentally vegetarian
Deb Perelman knows what she is talking about. Whenever I don’t know what I am doing, I just do what she says. If you want to make this cake, follow her directions for this recipe here.
Chapter 178
You think you are supposed to know what you are doing all the time. You don’t. No one does. That’s the big secret: we all feel incompetent and unqualified most of the time, most especially when we are doing the things we supposedly do best.
Maybe that’s why you try to do new things all the time, it’s a break from feeling like an imposter. Strangely, this is when your confidence kicks in (see Dunning-Kruger Effect vs Imposter Syndrome for validation).
Even if you have never had a honey cake, you’ve heard of honey cake and, for some reason, that’s reason enough to make one. After all, you are having dinner at a friend’s house, it’s still the High Holidays, and they told you to bring dessert. Despite the evidence of previous Bundts and Scones, you still don’t believe you know how to bake (unless it’s blueberry lemon something). However, you do know how to follow directions (even though you rarely practice that particular skill).
Never in your life would you think to mix coffee with orange juice and whiskey without also grabbing a barrel full of antacids, but here you are. You also wouldn’t think to use white sugar and brown sugar AND honey, but here you are. From the very limited amount of everything you know about making cake, you’d never start with the dry ingredients, but you’re a baking dummy. So, weigh out your flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.
When you use your stand mixer to blend the dry, instead of whisking it together like a normal person, send up a great plume of flour in celebration of your novice gall.
Measure out the remains of your morning coffee, orange juice, and whiskey.
Measure out your oil and then your honey because the oil helps the honey release. You are sure that someone else learned that the hard way and there is no reason to repeat the lesson.
Measure out both your sugars and confidently crack your eggs.
Add all those great many things to the mixer in no particular order because it just says to make a little well and add them and so that’s what you do. Blend well.
When the batter looks way thinner than any cake batter you have previously made (which is somewhere close to 5), just pour it in your prepared Bundt pan with the confidence of someone that has no idea what they are doing.
Bake at 350 for as long as it takes. Deb says until “it springs back when you gently touch the cake center” but your Bundt pan doesn’t really have a center. So, use all that Dunning-Kruger-based bravado to determine when it’s done. (50-60ish minutes)
Bring the finished cake with you to dinner. Enjoy the odd sensation of eating food that someone else made. Drink a little too much wine. Enjoy the feeling of a small table full of laughter and people that know each other well. Dip apples in honey and wish everyone a sweet new year. When dessert comes around and they all go back for a second slice, crown yourself a cake genius and then give all the credit to Deb’s recipe.
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