Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1 cup halved golden berries (aka ground cherries, cape gooseberries)
1 large ginger gold apple, grated
1 1/2 tablespoon honey
for the glaze:
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon honey
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Butter and SUGAR one Bundt pan. Set aside.
Squeeze the liquid out of the grated apple. Use one 1 cup grated, drained apple. Discard or repurpose any leftover apple.
In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the milk, sugar, eggs, oil, spices, and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. With the mixer running, stream in the dry ingredients and beat until well-incorporated. Fold in the apple, honey and golden berries. Scrape into prepared Bundt pan.
Bake for 50 minutes or until a thin knife inserted in the cake comes out with just a few damp crumbs.
Cool 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack, then remove and cool completely on the wire rack.
Whisk together the glaze ingredients in a small bowl. Drizzle cake with glaze. The glaze can be doubled if you want a really well-coated cake. Store leftovers at room temperature.
My thoughts:
I’ve been wanting to make a bundt cake for ages but it has been so hot, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s finally below 90 and I couldn’t wait anymore. Ever since I came across a mention in a novel of a cake that had a sugar crust I’ve wanted to try it. Then I watched last season’s Great British Bake Off and a contestant made a sugar-crusted cake and just amped up the urge. It’s super easy–just swap out flour for granulated sugar when buttering the pan–but you end up with a cake that has a crunchy, sweet coating. Why isn’t every cake made this way? Or at least all cakes you don’t want to ice? It’s so pretty and delicious!
I had other reasons for making the cake too, I have wanted to make a ground cherry cake since we went to Portugal a few years ago and the place we stayed in Porto had an amazing breakfast with a different breakfast cake every day! Every day! I never wanted to leave. It was the first time I encountered ground cherries and I loved their tart-sweetness. I haven’t been able to find them locally until recently so when I saw them, I obviously picked up a carton.
The final reason I wanted to make the cake is that Rosh Hashanah is right around the corner and I always try to make something with apples and honey as a nod to the tradition of dipping apples in honey for a sweet new year. I do not always get a chance to but this year my produce box happened to have some early local apples so I was all set! One note, this is a dairy cake as we do not keep kosher and have no reason to make it pareve. Feel free to substitute non-dairy milk for the milk in this recipe.
I also have on hand a bottle of locally made
BeeGeorge Honey that I picked up when staying at the
Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort last month. It’s made with bees from their property! How cool is that? I had one of the most relaxing weekends of my life there while apparently, bees were hard at work making my honey!
The result? A moist, fruity cake with a nice crumb. The golden berries break up the sweetness of the honey and apple and add a pleasing tart burst in many bites. Since the apple is shredded, it is in every bite of the cake.

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