L'Shana Tova!

May the New Year bring good health and happiness to you and those you love!

Tomorrow night at sundown Jewish families will be celebrating Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, by having a festive meal that includes dipping apple slices into a pot of honey. This is to ensure that your New Year will be "sweet".

This is why the traditional dessert is honey cake. I have looked through so many different honey cake recipes and came across one that looked very different from most traditional recipes called "Apricot Honey Cake", so I thought I'd give it a try. It came out delicious!

And then I decided to create my own by taking my zucchini bread recipe, substituting shredded apples for the zucchini, honey instead of sugar (but half the amount), cut oil in half to decrease the amount of liquid ingredients, increase baking soda by 1/2 tsp because honey is acidic and the baking soda counters that, and finally decreased cooking temp by 25 degrees because honey browns faster. I was a little nervous that it would turn out to be a disaster. But I must say I was very satisfied!

Apricot Honey

• 1/2 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup dark rum
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup clover honey
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• Grated peel and juice of 1 lemon
• Grated peel and juice of 1 orange
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup apricot jam
• 1 3/4 cups white rye or unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cake or unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds, or roughly chopped walnuts or cashews

In a small bowl, soak the apricots in the rum for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350° and grease a 10- by 5-inch loaf pan.

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Stir in the honey, vegetable oil, grated lemon and orange rind and juice, sugar, salt, and apricot jam.

Sift the 2 flours and the baking soda into another bowl.

Strain the apricots, reserving the excess rum.

Add the flour alternately with the rum to the honey cake mixture. Fold in the apricots. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with the nuts.

Bake in the oven on the lower rack for 50-55 minutes, or until the center of the cake is firm when you press it. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. If using mini loaf pans, bake for approximately 35 minutes.

Honey Apple (my experiment)

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup honey
  
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups shredded apples (about 3 medium)
  

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter and flour 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Sift first 5 ingredients into medium bowl. Beat honey, oil, eggs and vanilla to blend in large bowl. Mix in apples. Add dry ingredients and stir well.

Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Cool bread in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around bread to loosen. Turn out onto rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature.) If using mini loaf pans, decrease baking time to about 35-45 minutes.