Twelfth Night Cake

In honor of Bilbo and Frodo's birthday.

The second experiment towards Beorning Honey Cakes is a recipe called "Twelfth Night Cake," which comes from the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook. This is without question or near comparison the best baking cookbook I know. Coincidentally, the 200th anniversary was apparently in 1992, just before the woke wave began, so the cookbook still has the traditional Arthurian logo on the cover. 

By his arms, that's Galahad on the cover of the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook.

This is a delicious proto-pound cake, which qualifies for the experiment because instead of a pound of sugar it has a full cup of honey. It also has three sticks of butter, so it's very rich; yet it is not sweet, or only barely so, because a cup of white sugar would be much more purely sugar than the cup of honey that is in it. 

That relative lack of sweetness is appropriately medieval and authentic. King Arthur Flour recommends making a honey glaze sauce to top it, but we know from The Hobbit that the right toppings are going to be yet more butter and honey.

"Getting nice and fat again on bread and honey."

The recipe also includes three cups of flour, which like the prior recipe is divided between white and whole wheat in deference to modern tastes. This is not wrong for a recipe as late as this one, though -- it's a medieval Christmas cake, and white flour was available at least to the wealthy through much of the middle ages (and everyone might stretch for finer things at Christmas). We see the distinction made in the Old Norse poem Rígsþula, in which a god traveling under the name of Rig fathers different classes of mankind. The richest class dines on white bread, as well as grilled meats and wine. 

The question that remains is whether Beorn's hall is rustic enough that he would have only ground the whole grain, or if his art though rustic extends to white flour. Definitely the mixed whole and white flours used here give a pleasant nutty flavor, without the coarse cornbread-like texture of the earlier experiment. I will have to give that some thought before a final recipe.

Overall this one was very good, and I recommend it -- perhaps with the honey glaze they suggest, or just honey and butter, or ice cream if you like -- for the forthcoming holidays. So too the cookbook, which is extensive in its recipes and understanding of the art of baking. It will definitely improve almost anyone's baking skill and repertoire.