Wilder's German Honey Cake -- Success at last!

Previously I tried Laura Ingalls Wilder's recipe on German Honey Cake as she reported it from her visits to the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition.  It was not a success; I felt like I had baked bricks.  Visit the first post by clicking here.  

I tried it again (twice!) - attempt number two was goo and number three was "almost a cookie" but not quite right.  Visit the second post by clicking here.

Now here I am with two more attempts to report.

My first goal was to get the right amount of flour.  After finding that 2 cups was too much and, that 1/2 and 1 cup were too little, I tried 1 1/2 cups.  

What I saw was that the dough looked dry at first, but if I gave it a minute or two to sit, the flour hydrated.  It went from dry to moist and only somewhat sticky.  It did not pour into the pan as Wilder said it would, but it did spread if I insisted.

The flour quantity looks just right!

It went into the 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.  The edges were cooked but the middle still looked damp, but I pulled it anyway.

I let it cool and cut a piece.  Sure enough, it was very damp in the interior.

So I put it into the toaster oven at 350 degrees for a few minutes.  That cooked it to a better level.

I decided to rebake what was in the pan.  I put it into the regular oven while it was heating to 350 degrees.  After the top browned better, I let it cool and tried a piece.

Yes, much better!  It was still damp inside but did not look or taste uncooked.  The next day I took the batch to work -- my colleagues gave me positive feedback.  They liked the taste, it was not too chewy (I was a little worried), and even the person who dislikes ginger in cookies thought it was good.

So I wanted to try it one more time to see if I could get the whole recipe, including the baking, right.  And I did!

Here is the final version:

1 cup honey

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups flour

Beat the honey and sugar together for 20 minutes.  (I used a mixer.)  While that is going on, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F for a glass pan or 350 degrees for a metal pan.  Butter the pan well.  (I used an 8 x 12 inch glass pan.)

Add the spices and mix well.  Add the baking powder and mix well. 

Mix the flour in by hand.  I liked putting in one cup, mixing, then adding the last 1/2 cup.  It will look dry at first but then the flour absorbs the moisture from the honey.  Let it rest for a minute or two while this happens, then stir until the flour is mixed in well. 

Scoop the dough into the baking pan and spread it.  You will have to push it, but the dough is sticky and not too firm.

Bake until the edges look dry and the middle is puffy and shows some browning.  20 to 30 minutes.

Let cool, cut into squares, and enjoy.  

You can put the chocolate icing on it; another tradition is to use a lemon glaze.  It is also good without any icing.

I found that if I let the batch sit in the pan for a day, covered, that the moisture evened out, especially on the edges that were cooked more than the middle.  The cookies were softer and more enjoyable to eat.

My guest tasters at home thought the cookies were particularly good with a cup of coffee.

Takes 2 and 3: German Honey Cake via Laura Ingalls Wilder

Previously I tried Laura Ingalls Wilder's recipe on German Honey Cake as she reported it from her visits to the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition.  Visit that post by clicking here.

ISBN 0-06-440081-6

It was not successful.  The cake or cookies came out as too hard to eat, and it wasn't until I had them stored in a bag with a damp paper towel for several days did they get reasonably soft enough to bite without too much discomfort.

I speculated that her liquid-to-flour ratio was off.  Comparing her ratio to other recipes I found both in my books and on the internet, I thought she needed to use 1/2 cup of flour instead of two cups.

So I tried the recipe again:  I beat the honey and sugar together for 20 minutes, mixed in the spices, mixed in the baking powder, then hand-stirred in the flour.  I definitely had a batter that I could pour into a well-buttered pan.  Take 2!

After 18 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees F, I saw that the mixture was bubbling (almost bubbling over the edges of the glass dish) but not firm.  But I took it out and let it cool, just to see.  

Right out of the oven.

After cooling.

In the meantime, I made another batch of the (luscious) chocolate frosting, cooking it to 220 degrees F instead of the 230 degrees I did last time, and using more water to start with.  I also used some water to wash the sides of the pan, hoping to avoid sugaring.

Once it had reached temperature (but no threading showed up in the cool water test), I poured it over the mixture in the baking dish.

And then it sank.

Not surprisingly, the chocolate topping sank through the mixture.  What I had was a pan of goo -- spicy, sweet, tasty goo with chocolate syrup underneath -- but goo, nonetheless.  Failure.

Clearly 1/2 cup of flour was not enough to produce anything that resembled a cake or cookies.  My speculation was way off!  I let it cool completely and thought about what to do next.

Even though I could reasonably expect to separate most of the goo from the chocolate syrup, I decided it wasn't worth it.  The honey mixture's water content was changed from when I started Take 2, so I chose to just mix in more flour to the combined goo and syrup to see if I could get it to something that resembled a cake.

Tasty goo.

Take 3!  I stirred in 1/2 cup of flour by hand, a little at a time.  At that stage, the goo had turned into something that resembled a cake batter -- thicker but not too thick.  It was still soft enough to spread into a greased pan.  This time I chose a wide pan with short sides and baked it in the toaster oven at 350 degrees.

Goo with flour added.

In a wide, short pan.

It, too, bubbled up and got puffy.  It went over the sides of the pan.  After 15 minutes, I pulled it out (and cleaned the oven).  It cooled.

A mess, but not difficult to clean.

The result was dubbed "almost a cookie."  It was still sweet, spicy, and had a wonderful chocolate flavor throughout.  But it wasn't quite a cookie, more like a soft candy:  it held its shape, was sticky but not to everything, and had some bite resistance.  It also had an underlying taste of not-quite-cooked flour to it.  

It reminds me of the molasses lace cookies I've made before.

It held its shape!

Yet another failure.  However, I feel that I was closer to success!  I need to try Ms. Wilder's recipe again, and perhaps the chocolate topping recipe, too.

Stay tuned for the next installment of "Trying to Get It Right!".