INGREDIENTS
- 5 large egg whites
- 100ml honey (A stronger honey flavour like Eucalyptus or lucerne honey works quite well)
- Fresh berries for garnish
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to180°C. Grease the interior of a 6 cup Bundt pan with cooking oil spray.
- Add egg whites to a large mixing bowl. Beat at highest speed with whisk attachment until light and frothy. Without turning off your mixer, gradually add in the honey and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. You can also do this with a handheld mixer but I prefer a stand mixer because that makes it easier to pour in the honey gradually
- Add your batter to the bundt pan. You want to add your batter in layers. Add enough batter to cover the bottom of your pan and use a spatula to spread it evenly across, while also applying light pressure so that the batter will take the form of the cake pan. When you are done with one layer, add more batter, and repeat. Doing it this way will also prevent any large air pockets in the middle of your cake. Bang the bottom of your cake pan against your counter a few times to remove any remaining air pockets from the batter.
- The cake is going to be cooked in a water bath. To do this, place your cake pan into a larger baking pan. I used a 9 x 13 baking pan. Pour 1/2 inch of water into the larger pan. Then put your cake pan inside the larger pan.
- Bake for about 15 minutes at 180°C. Check on your cake after 15 minutes but don’t open the oven door. It is very important that you don’t open the oven door because you need the heat to continue to cook the cake. The top of your cake should have risen slightly above the cake pan and be a medium brown colour. You do want to be careful not to overbake the cake while the oven is on (see notes section for more details). Without opening the oven door, turn off the oven and let the cake continue to cook for 30 minutes with the oven door shut. Your cake will continue to rise once the oven is turned off. It should rise to double the volume of the original batter before starting to sink down a little.
- After 30 minutes, you can remove the cake from the oven. Let the cake cool in the water bath for 10 minutes, then remove from the water bath and let the cake continue to cool in the pan. The cake will shrink a little more as it cools. Once the cake has cooled, flip cake over onto a plate. If desired, drizzle with more honey before serving. The cake looks and tastes best the day it is made so I don’t recommend making the dessert a day ahead of time. Leftovers can be stored in fridge in an airtight container.
NOTES
- 100ml of honey refers to volume not weight. It is also equal to 6 tbsp of honey. I found this to be the perfect level of sweetness for my family but I know people’s sweet preferences can vary greatly. If you wish for a sweeter cake, you can use 1/2 cup (125ml) of honey instead of 100ml. I found 1/2 cup of honey too sweet but the cake still baked properly. You can also just drizzle more honey or syrup on the cake after it is finished.
- This recipe uses egg whites from 5 large eggs (using US standards).
- You do need to be careful not to overbake the cake. I found that even baking 5 extra minutes when the oven is on completely changed the results. Overbaking it will cause the cake to shrivel up once it cools. Instead of a cake it will be like a compact bread (cloud bread if you’ve ever had it).
- The cake will only rise a little above your cake pan when you turn off your oven and should be brown on the surface. Your cake will continue to cook and rise higher after the oven is turned off. It should rise to close to double its original size before gradually sinking back down.
NUTRITION
serving: 1 slice, calories: 43kcal, carbohydrates: 9g, protein: 2g, fat: 0.04g, sodium: 35mg, fiber: 0.02g, sugar: 9g, net carbs: 9g
