Lekach

Lekach Recipe –

Ingredients -

Flour – 3 ½ cups

Baking powder – 1 ½ teaspoons

Baking soda – ½ teaspoon

Cinnamon – 1 teaspoon

Allspice – ½ teaspoon

Salt – ¼ teaspoon

Honey – 1 cup

Strong coffee, cooled – ½ cup

Vegetable oil – 2 tablespoons

Eggs – 4

Brown Sugar – 1 cup

Chopped Walnuts or Almonds – ¾ cup

Raisins, soaked in warm water and drained – ¾ cup

Brandy or rum (optional) – 3 tablespoons

Directions -

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the honey, coffee, and oil. Both set aside.

2. Add the eggs and brown sugar to the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium speed until light and foamy, 4-5 minutes.

3. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add about 1/3 of the flour mixture, allowing it to incorporate fully. Next add half of the honey-mixture, once again allowing it to be fully incorporated. Continue with another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the remaining honey mixture, and finish with the remaining flour.

4. Remove the mixer bowl and gently fold in the walnuts, soaked raisins and brandy with a wooden spoon or spatula.

5. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9-inch round or square cake pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

6. Remove the cake to a counter and cool completely before removing from the pan. Cut into diamond-shaped slices and serve with hot coffee.

My second stop on my way ‘around the world’ is in Israel. Lekach is a traditional Jewish honey cake, seasoned with many spices. This dessert, which is usually served with coffee, is eaten mainly within the Jewish religion, or anywhere in Israel. It is especially popular on the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah. The cake symbolizes a sweet New Year on the Jewish calendar. To me, this cake symbolizes a very sweet treat! I chose this dessert, thinking it would be an easy one to make - I was right! The recipe was pretty easy to follow, and the cake turned out very good! I altered the ingredients a tad by using pecans instead of walnuts or almonds, like the recipe says. I had mistakenly bought the wrong kind of nut! But, it still turned out delicious, so if pecans are the only nut you have, they work perfectly fine for this kind of cake. I also did not use the optional brandy or rum in my recipe, because we did not have any on hand. One of the variations for the recipe was using apple juice instead of coffee. If I ever make this cake again, I will most definitely try that; it sounds like it would be a good replacement. My cake also took a little bit longer to bake – about 60 minutes. Something strange that I noticed was that, after it had been out of the oven for a little while, the middle part of the cake had sunk in a little bit (you can see this in the picture). I thought this was kind of weird, but it tasted normal to me! The Lekach was very moist, and the spices added some great flavor. Overall, the cake turned out super yummy, and got great reviews from most of my family members (except the non-raisin lovers). I would give it a rating of 4 stars out of 5!