Honey Cake with Tahini Cream Cheese Frosting

You can eat honey cake to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Or you can eat it just because it's delicious. I vote for doing both. and definitely doing the latter often.

Rosh Hashanah honey cakes tend to be well spiced, almost like gingerbread, but with honey instead of molasses. And they're typically served unfrosted as a snack with a cup of tea. Honey is used to signify the wish for a sweet new year.

But I always want to go one better and decided to amp up the dessert factor of this loaf by adding a frosting. And since I was dialing it up already, why not go further with a tahini cream cheese?

If you already love tahini then you're probably just nodding your head right now and adding cream cheese to your grocery list. But if you're not familiar, tahini, also called sesame paste, is just that. A paste made out of ground up sesame seeds. Think of it as a seed butter, like peanut butter but with sesame seeds. And it's just as versatile as any nut butter. Savory or sweet, it's delicious and amazing in a cream cheese frosting. And honey cake is amazing frosted. I don't think I ever want to eat it any other way again. Enjoy!

Yield: 8 Servings

Author: Anita Schecter

Honey Cake with Tahini Cream Cheese Frosting

Prep time: 20 MinCook time: 50 MinTotal time: 1 H & 10 M

Recipe for a honey cake with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Topped with a sweet tahini cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients

For the Honey Cake:

• 1 Stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 Cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 Cup honey
• 1 Egg
• 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 Cup full fat Greek style yogurt
• 2 Cups all-purpose flour
• 2 Teaspoons baking powder
• 1 Teaspoon salt
• 1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 Teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 Teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the Tahini Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 4 oz. Cream cheese, softened
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 3/4 Cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 Cup sesame paste
• 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 Teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a standard loaf pan with parchment paper.
2. Cream together the unsalted butter and granulated sugar. This can be done in a stand mixer or in a bowl with a hand mixer. Beat in the egg, honey, vanilla and Greek yogurt.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt ground cinnamon, ground ginger and ground nutmeg.
4. Pour into the pan and bake for approximately 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool before frosting.
5. To make the tahini cream cheese frosting, cream together the softened cream cheese, softened unsalted butter, powdered sugar, sesame paste, vanilla and salt until smooth. Frost the cooled honey cake and serve.