First of all, I have absolutely no idea why this is called Russian Honey Cake. What I do know is that even though it’s a weird spongy texture, this cake is a fan favorite, a breeze to whip up, and hard to mess up.
This cake is pulled from a Food52 recipe and the glaze is from another cake recipe and they just work SO well together y’all. Their rendition has nuts in it but I don’t like crunch in the way of my dessert. If you’d like, add walnuts at the end mk.

SN: I know the picture has a bundt cake shape, which looks nice but honestly glazing it was a pain and I will go back to a round cake pan next time. This what I get for trying to be pretty for y’all.

Recipe

For the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and spray your cake pan, bundt pan, or springform pan with Pam. I like the one with flour already in it, which is especially for baking and way less messy than buttering and flouring.
2. To separate the eggs, crack the shells into two pieces and roll the yolk back and forth. If you’re struggling, just crack an egg into your clean clean hand and roll the yolk around, letting the whites fall through your fingers. Put the yolks in another bowl.
3. Stick the bowl with the egg whites in the fridge until further notice.
4. Into the bowl with the yolks, add 1 cup of sugar and use your hand mixer to beat until it turns a pale yellow color.
5. Add some honey, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 cup sour cream (or ricotta or cream cheese or half of one and the other – any combination to get to 1 cup). This is a great way to use odds and ends of other random dairy pints you have sitting in the fridge. Beat it up.
6. Slowly, with the hand mixer on, add flour about ¼ cup at a time.
7. Take the bowl with the egg white out, and SWITCH THE BEATERS ON THE MIXER to the whisk, or whisk by hand and prepare to be there for a while. Beat the egg whites until you get stiff peaks. That means if you put the whisk in the egg whites, which are now white and thick by the way, and lift it straight up you’ll get a little mountain and the egg whites don’t just flop back down. Here’s a helpful link of what that means.
8. When you have achieved stiff peaks, fold the egg whites into the batter very carefully so as to not deflate them. After minimal handling, pour batter into the cake pan. Don’t fill it to the top unless you want a mess in the oven! Leave room!
9. Put it in the oven 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.

For the glaze:

1. Add butter, salt, sugar and cream into a pot on medium heat. Bring to a full rolling boil while stirring the whole time. Boil for exactly one minute and then take it off the heat and chill for a couple minutes.
2. Add sugar, ¼ at a time and whisk pretty furiously until well incorporated. Keep adding the sugar and you’ll see it get thick enough to call itself a glaze! Let it cool some more if it isn’t thick enough, and if it’s too thick, add some cream.
3. Put it all together! Place the cake on a wire rack, or hell even a plate and very slowly pour glaze on top. If it’s really thin, and you got time, I put something to catch the drips under the cake and do a couple rounds of glaze to get a yummy sugary crust all over.