The Medicine Woman's Roots: Desert Honey Cake

Desert Honey Cake
Posted: 17 Oct 2013 09:54 AM PDT

My Desert Honey Cake is based on the traditional Scottish Whisky Cake, but with the addition/substitution of readily available bioregional ingredients such as mesquite flour and pine nuts. I feel that the earthy, malted flavor of mesquite flour blends beautifully with the peaty, slightly smokey flavor of good scotch whisky to make a rich, complex, and wild treat perfect for Autumn and Winter. My apologies for not having a specific picture of the cake, but my family loved it so much, it got eaten up before the camera could make it to the scene!

I’ve also made an elixir of pine needles, whisky, and honey to use in the place of the straight whisky, but you can do it either way, just remember to taste the batter and adjust to taste.

Ingredients:
 1 stick butter
 1/2 C honey
 1 egg
 2/3 C flour
 1/2 C mesquite flour
 1 tsp baking soda
 1/2 tsp salt
 1 tsp cinnamon
 1/2 tsp cardamom
 1/2 tsp nutmeg
 2 tsp vanilla extract
 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
 1/4 C pine elixir made with whisky or whisky
 1/4 C butter roasted pine nuts

Directions:
1. Melt butter over low heat
2. Stir in honey
3. Remove from heat, and stir in egg
4. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients
5. Fold dry ingredients into wet
6. Batter should be liquid but thick, if it’s doughy you need more liquid (you can add more whisky or water as you prefer), if it’s watery, then add more mesquite flour.
7. Oil/butter small cake pan
8. Bake at 350 degrees for appr. 30-40 minutes or until firm and not sticky in the middle.
I iced my Desert Honey Cake with a Mesquite Whisky Butter Icing, but a plain Vanilla icing would also work very well.

Note: all measurements are approximate, feel free to adapt to your preferences.

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