I guess when we miss traditional food, it’s not only the food we’re craving but also that feeling of wanting to relive some moments, memories, flavors.
That’s exactly what happens to me whenever I crave this Albanian honey cake. I used to love it when I was a child, and I was looking forward to the next time my mother was going to bake it. Then it started feeling a little too sweet for my palette, and would just have a few bites.
Few days ago I was thinking about it and decided to make some changes to my family recipe for honey cake, reducing the amount of sugar and adding new spices.
Shendetllie – Albanian honey cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 & 1/2 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 & 1/2 tsp Mahlab
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 150 g butter
- 2 eggs
Syrup
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1/3 cup water
Directions
- Preheat the oven at 180 C.
- Layer a 20cm baking pan with baking paper and set aside.
- Melt the butter and mix it with honey and sugar.
- Add the eggs and mix well.
- In another bowl mix flour, salt, baking powder and mahlab.
- Pour the dry mixture to the wet mixture and gently mix.
- At the end fold the walnuts.
- Pour the batter in the tin.
- Bake in the preheated oven for around 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Once the cake is ready, remove from the oven and let it cool.
- To prepare the syrup just mix water & honey, put them in a small saucepan and cook until the syrup reaches a soft boil.
- Pour the hot mixture to the cool cake.
- Let the cake cool well before serving.
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