Best Jewish Honey Cake Recipes

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Need honey cake recipes? These are my favorites and this year I’m adding Nigella’s chocolate honey cake. I love this simple, rich chocolate honey cake with chocolate honey frosting.

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Though we still have a month until the Jewish new year, I figure it’s time to start planning ahead.

Last year I didn’t have a chance to share this chocolate honey cake from Nigella.

Rich and delicious, this chocolate honey cake is a special and more elegant way to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

I have made several honey cake recipes over the years.

This honey cake with whiskey and pecans, made in a loaf pan, with a simple whiskey glaze is perfect for gift giving.

It isn’t as traditional as some, but man, it is good.

This honey cake is a more traditional lekach and made by combining the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and is a simple honey cake to make. Studded with apples and nuts, it belongs in your honey cake recipes file. My grandma actually had one of those!

Honey Cake Recipe with apple and walnuts garnish

All three of these are the perfect recipe for a moist honey cake, but everyone has their own preference.

Make all three and let me know which of these honey cake recipes is going in your file.

Why This Chocolate Honey Cake is so Amazing!

Well, duh! It has chocolate!

I love chocolate and this cake is also loaded with lots of honey flavor.

The top of the cake is frosted with a chocolate honey frosting and you may even want to use this chocolate honey frosting on other favorite cakes.

Between the frosting and the cake there is one cup honey in this Jewish honey cake recipe.

Because it is so moist, it lasts a long time, which is great if you love cake like I do.

So if you love sweet cakes made with chocolate and honey, than this is the cake for you.

chocolate honey cake recipes with chocolate honey cake slice

FAQ’s

Can honey cake be frozen?

Chocolate honey cake can be baked a day ahead, removed from pan and placed on a serving platter and frosted. Then cover well with plastic wrap.
The cake can also be frozen, wrapped well in a double layer of plastic wrap and a layer of aluminum foil for up to 3 months.
Unwrap and thaw at room temperature for about 3 hours. Glaze the same day of serving.
Leftovers will keep up to a week in a cool place in an airtight container or well covered.

What is Honey Cake?

There are many traditional honey cake recipes but a traditional Jewish honey cake or lekach, is a symbolic food eaten by Ashkenazic Jews for the New Year during the high holidays.
It is traditional to eat honey, such as honey and apples, to ensure a sweet year.
There are many versions of honey cake, but I had never seen a chocolate honey cake before.

What are the most common types of honey cake recipes?

Jewish honey cake is often made in loaf form and made with spices that commonly include cinnamon. They are also often made with vegetable oil instead of butter, to satisfy kosher dietary requirements.
Russian honey cake, Medovik, is made with 8 cake layers.
Greek honey cake often contains citrus flavors, like orange juice, which also can often be found in Jewish honey cakes.

honey cake recipes with chocolate honey cake on platter photo

Ingredients for Chocolate Honey Cake

Semisweet chocolate or dark chocolate or a combination of the two, broken into pieces for cake and frosting

Light brown sugar

Butter – softened (I used salted butter because Nigella’s recipe did not call for salt. If you only have unsalted butter add a pinch of salt.

Honey – for cake and frosting (Use a flavor you like, but I used my clover honey bear honey)

Large Eggs at room temperature

All-purpose flour

Baking soda – use only about 3/4 for high altitude

Unsweetened Cocoa

Boiling water- in traditional honey cakes, like the ones above I used Earl Grey black tea, but have not tried this in this cake

Sticky Honey Glaze:

Water

Honey

Semisweet chocolate or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Powdered Sugar

honey cake recipes with chocolate honey cake slice and fork on white plate

How To Make Chocolate Honey Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter and line a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper.

Melt chocolate in microwave or over low heat on stove. Set aside to cool.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together sugar and soft, room temperature butter until creamy, and then add the honey.

Add 1 of the eggs, beating it in with one tablespoon of flour, and then add the other egg with another tablespoon of flour.

Fold in the melted chocolate, the rest of the flour and baking soda.

Add the cocoa, pushed through a fine wire mesh strainer to ensure no lumps, and then beat in boiling water.

Mix well to make a smooth batter and pour into the prepared spring-form pan.

Bake up to 1 1/2 hours, but check the cake after 45 minutes. If it is getting too dark, cover the top lightly with aluminium foil and check every 15 minutes so the cake does not scorch.

Let the tender cake cool completely in the pan on a rack and then unmold to a serving plate.

Make Glaze:

Bring the water and honey to a boil in a saucepan, then turn off the heat and add the finely chopped chocolate, swirling it around to melt in the hot liquid.

Leave a few minutes, then whisk together. Add the powdered sugar through a fine mesh strainer and whisk again until smooth.

Pour glaze over the cold chocolate honey cake; it might dribble a bit down the sides of the cake, but I just spread it around.

The glaze remains tacky, so make a head and let it sit a bit. It does not totally dry out like a buttercream does. This is more like a sticky ganache.

I love this majestic honey cake, but I must be honest.

As a child I was not a fan of honey cake.

I don’t know if it was the spices involved or the fact that the ones I ate had no frosting.

Probably the real reason is because the honey cake recipes I ate were made from a box and just maybe they really weren’t any good! But they must be because the honey cake always disappeared!

I promise you all three of these honey cake recipes are very good and I would be content with any of them. Actually more than content!

This is an easy recipe and is the best honey cake recipe I know, except for the other two honey cake recipes on this page!

Nigella called this a honeybee cake because she garnished it with marzipan honeybees.

All I know is that when I am getting ready for the high holy days, I do not want to be bothered with making honeybees!

However they do look cute in the photos I’ve seen!