Honeycomb Cake

Amanda,

At the risk of sounding like a Williams-Sonoma sales associate, I present--The Honeycomb Cake!

I am a real fan of shaped pans and molds--when they work, your end product is a no-fuss dessert that looks like it was impossible to make. (One of the guys who lives in my dorm asked me if I did this pattern by hand. Ha!) As it turns out, none of my fears about the pan had any foundation. The cake fell out without even additional encouragement (shaking, etc). Nothing stuck behind and the pull apart segments obliged perfectly. Below is the WS catalog photo:



The cake looked almost exactly like this, only I slathered it in a honey glaze instead of sprinkling it with powdered sugar.

Note: usually I disregard any direction that forbids me from devouring my dessert without cooling. Honestly, this cakes improves the longer it sits--a few mornings after I originally baked it the flavor and texture seemed better than when I had first pulled it out of the oven . . . mysterious, but true.

I am looking for an alternate recipe for the pan, since the batter was very heavy and took me a while to create (partially because I don't have a food processor and I used a very small paring knife to fabricate "ground almonds." Don't try it.) It has to be a reasonably dense cake though, so that the shape holds. Any suggestions?

Cake:
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
16 Tbs unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 milk
1/2 cup toasted sliced almonds, ground

Honey Glaze:
4 Tbs unsalted butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 Tbs. water

I am currently too lazy to write out all the directions. if you really want to make it, ask me and I will elaborate.

Love!

Celia