Can I Use Honey For The Clementine Cake?

Our answer

NIgella's Clementine Cake (from HOW TO EAT) is a gluten-free cake that is made with whole, cooked clementines, eggs, sugar and ground almonds (almond meal). The ingredients are blitzed together in a food processor to make a fairly runny cake batter and produces a very moist and tender cake.

We would prefer not to use honey instead of sugar for the cake, for several reasons. Firstly, honey has a fairly strong flavour (even mild honeys) and when used in baking honey often overpowers other flavours. So it would mask the citrussy flavour of the clementines. In addition, honey is sweeter than sugar and more liquid, so you would need to adjust the amount used and also start adjusting the quantities of all of the other ingredients in the cake. Honey is also hygroscopic, meaning it attracts moisture. The cake is already very moist and could end up being too wet if honey is used. Finally, baked goods with honey can brown extremely quickly and as the cake already browns fairly quickly, adding honey will increase the risk that the top or edges of the cake burn slightly. If you wanted to make a cake using honey, then we would suggest trying the Honey Cake With Dates And Apples.