KARIDOPITA: WALNUT & HONEY CAKE
Ingredients
The cake:
- 1 cup light olive oil
- 6 eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 and 1/2 cups coarsely ground walnuts plus 1 tablespoon flour
The Honey Syrup:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup honey
- 3 cups water
- 1/4 teaspoon whole cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
The garnish:
- 1/2 cup ground walnuts
- 1 teaspoon powdered sugar
- a pinch of ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- This cake is so easy to make. It's light and delicious. In Greece, it is very common to bake with olive oil. That is how this cake is made. I used a light green olive oil. You may substitute vegetable oil if you don't have olive oil. It's loaded with healthy walnuts and then drenched in a yummy honey syrup right after it's baked.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter the bottom and sides of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.
- *Tip: Begin by measuring out your dry ingredients so that you will have fewer things to clean 😉 Also, measure your honey after measuring the oil for the cake. Doing this makes the honey slide out of the measuring cup much easier.
- Beat the eggs and sugar together for a few minutes until thick and pale. Add the olive oil and milk. Beat well to incorporate.
- In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, ground cloves and salt. Slowly add them to the egg mixture while gently whisking just until incorporated and most of the batter is smooth. Do not over mix! Otherwise your cake will not be light and fluffy.
- Combine the ground walnuts with the tablespoon of flour and mix it. This will prevent the walnuts from sinking to the bottom of the cake.
- Fold in the walnuts gently with a spatula.
- Pour the batter in the already prepared baking dish.
- Bake it for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- While the cake is baking, prepare the honey syrup. Combine all of the ingredients into a saucepan. Bring it to a boil while stirring. Let it continue to cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes until very slightly thickened. Turn off the heat and allow the syrup to cool completely before removing the cloves and cinnamon stick.
- As soon as the cake is done baking, remove it from the oven and poke it all over with a toothpick. Pour all of the cooled honey syrup over the cake slowly, allowing it to be absorbed.
- Combine the walnuts with the powdered sugar, cinnamon and cloves and sprinkle over the cake to garnish.
- Enjoy!!
Hi Dimitri! Hope you are having a great vacation if you’re still gone. I want to make a honey cake in my beehive cake mold by Nordic Ware it’s in two pieces if you could look it up and let me know if I could use this recipe or not I would sincerely appreciate it. Thanks!
Bea
True flavors of Greece! This will knock my husband’s socks off!!
This cake was fluffy and very light, Amazing cake Dimitra, thank you.
I have made a lot of your recipes and they’re delicious
From London with love
Sophia xxx
I followed this perfectly, the cake looks fine but I used half of the syrup and it’s pooling on the sides. I poked like crazy with a tooth pick as well. What am I doing wrong?am I to use all of the syrup? Seems a lot
Hi Elizabeth. The syrup will pool on the sides until it is all absorbed by the cake. It might take a bit longer than expected. Enjoy! You can use less next time if you prefer 🙂
Hello, how should I store this? Will it keep unrefrigerated?
It’s best stored at room temperature in an airtight container. You can also refrigerate it if you’d like 🙂