Back to Home About Mango & Tomato Contact MePublicity & News Hire Me!Portfolio

9/20/12

Honey Nut Date Cake Recipe: Bridal Shower for Megan & Belated L'Shana Tova


I've known Megan for at least three years now. We met virtually because of our love of food, blogging and tweeting ;) Luckily, we finally had a chance to meet in real life the last time I was in Boston. Even more lucky, we liked each other in real life and shared a wonderful evening of tapas.

When I was asked to participate in a virtual bridal shower for Megan, I said yes, but wasn't sure what to bake. After all, not only is Megan great at baking, but she actually used to work at a bakery!

Originally, I was thinking about making a Russian sour cream cake because I love it, but I wasn't too happy with my mom's directions {sorry, mom!}. So I kept on thinking.

Then I realized that the weekend I was planning to bake something for the virtual bridal shower was Rosh Hashana: Jewish New Year, and it all came together!

Megan is marrying Jeff, who is Jewish. Marriage is a start of a wonderful new happy journey and is a big celebration that includes a cake. So I decided to make a Honey Nut Date Cake from The Shiksa ;) Not only would it be perfect for my New Year Celebration dinner I was hosting for friends, but it would be very symbolic for Megan's shower.

Since I made the recipe as is, I'm not going to retype the exact ingredients and directions.

You basically combine cake flour, a few spices, brown sugar, honey, nuts, dates, oil and eggs together and bake. Easy enough, right?


I decided to make two versions of the cake: one exactly like The Shiksa's, another with my little twist: an addition of chocolate chips and orange zest.



{Note: here is the story behind the baking containers.}
Halfway through the baking process I realized that I forgot to add oil. OY! No one is perfect. The cakes without oil were edible, but obviously on the dry side. Luckily, I had enough ingredients to make one more cake. That's the one pictured below:


Here is a picture of my unintentionally oil-free cake with nuts, dates, honey, orange zest and chocolate chips:


And this is the super moist and rich cake with all the necessary ingredients:


Megan and Jeff, I wish you a wonderful wedding day filled with family, friends, food, music and laughter. May your marriage be as sweet as this cake.

xoxo,
Olga



PS I sliced the cake that was missing oil, toasted it and smeared it with butter: awesome results ;)
PPS see more of Megan's virtual bridal shower here.

7 comments:

DeliciousDish said...

Thank you, Olga! This post is so sweet. I would love the cake with chocolate chips and orange zest -- totally agree with your additions. I'm so happy we met through our blogs and actually got to meet in person too... and someday I will get down to DC to visit!

Shannon G said...

ooh, chocolate and orange are a fabulous addition to these cakes! YUM :)

mary said...

Those containers are adorable!

Laura @MotherWouldKnow said...

Lovely post and even lovelier that you and the others have celebrated Megan's upcoming wedding. I've never found a honey cake that was as moist and wonderful as this one looks - I'm going to try it for sure.

discojing said...

I like the containers! Where did you get them / how much?

Olga @ MangoTomato said...

I have them leftover from freelancing for Robyn: http://www.robynwebb.com/fabulousfoodfinds/?p=557

chezsasha.com said...

Looks great - I would take a cake like this over a frosted one any day.