Honey cake with semolina filling, jam and butterscotch

Today I'd like to share a recipe for honey cake made out of traditional shortcrust pastry. We'll layer them with a semolina-based filling and jam, and decorate with butterscotch and nuts.

It's a beautiful cake made out of many delicious ingredients. None of them dominates, but together they form a neat composition. This honey cake is best prepared a few days ahead to let the cake become soft thanks to the filling, but this gives us time for other festive preparations.

You'll find the list of ingredients, method and approximate nutritional value below.

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List of ingredients (26 x 26 cm tin)

Dough

• 0.5 cup (~150 g) honey
•  80 g unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup (~50 g) sugar
• 4 cups (~600 g) wheat flour
  
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 egg
• 3 heaped tbsp (~120 g) soured cream

Filling

• 750 ml milk
•  6 tbsp (~90 g) semolina
• 1/2 cup (~100 g) sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200 g unsalted butter

Also

• 1 jar plum jam (~300 g)
• 0.5 can butterscotch (~200 g)
• A palmful walnuts (~60 g) 
• 1 tbsp almond flakes (~15 g)
  

Method

1. Prepare honey dough. Pour 150 g honey into a medium pot. Add 80 g butter and 50 g caster sugar. Heat up the contents of the pot at low heat, stirring, only until they combine. Set honey syrup aside to cool.
2. Sift 600 g wheat flour and 1 tsp baking soda into a large bowl. Mix through with a whisk to distribute soda in flour. Add cool honey syrup, 3 tbsp soured cream and one large egg. Mix the contents of the bowl with a silicone spatula until flour absorbs all moisture.
3. Start kneading the dough with your hand, in the bowl at first, until roughly mixed, and then onto a work surface, until smooth and uniform dough forms. It shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes. Form dough into a ball and divide it into 4 equal parts. Return 3 parts to the bowl and set aside, covered, until ready to use them.
4. Roll the dough out directly in a square baking tin lined with baking paper (26 x 26 cm). Press the dough lightly with your fingers first to make it stick to the paper, and then form a thin layer across the whole surface using a rolling pin. Prick the thin layer of dough with a fork across the surface.
5. Bake each layer in a conventional oven preheated to 180 deg C for 12 minutes, until beautiful and golden. Take ready later out of the oven and set it aside for 5 minutes to cool slightly, transfer it onto a wire rack and cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough parts. Once all are done, put them into the tin one on top of another and put them into a fridge for the night.
6. On the next day, prepare semolina filling. Pour 750 ml milk into a non-stick pot. Add 100 g sugar and heat up until combined, stirring. Bring the milk to a slow boil and add 90 g semolina. Do it slowly, continuing to stir energetically. Once all of semolina is in cook the mixture until it thickens up. Take it off the heat, pour into a separate bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside to cool completely.
7. Into a separate bowl, add 200 g butter softened at room temperature and beat it with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add cool semolina in batches, ideally one tablespoon at a time. Beat the filling after each tablespoon until fully combined. At the end, mix in a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
8. Line the baking tin you used with baking paper and place the first cake layer in the bottom. Spread around 100 g of plum jam in a thin layer across the surface. Put in 1/3 of semolina filling and also spread it into a thin layer. Put in the next cake layer and repeat all the steps until you run out of cake. Pour 200 g butterscotch onto the top layer and spread it across the surface. Decorate with walnuts and almond flakes. Put cake into a fridge for a day or two to soften up.
9. Enjoy!

Approximate nutritional value

100 g

• 334 kcal
• Carbs: 46 g 
• Fat: 14 g
• Protein: 6 g
• Fibre: 1 g

1 slice (recipe makes 25 slices)

• 313 kcal
• Carbs: 43 g 
• Fat: 14 g
• Protein: 6 g
• Fibre: 1 g