These easy-to-make Honey Cakes are loaded with delicious honey flavor and crisped around the edges from the caramelized honey! The rich orange and honey spiced aroma will fill your home and win hearts no matter when they are baked and served!
These tasty honey cakes are a delightfully flavorful treat everyone loves!
This honey cakes recipe was bound to show up on the blog. I thought earlier rather than later, but it is finally here and it is so good! I absolutely LOVE honey, and all things baked with honey, and I hope you love these too!
Last year, a friend requested these handheld size honey cakes for Rosh Hashanah (minus the frosting). I made enough to send over and saved some for my family to enjoy.
Everyone absolutely raved about the flavors. I couldn't believe I had forgotten just how much wonderful flavor was packed into my favorite honey cake recipe!
The mini cupcake version is slightly different than the standard loaf pan sliced honey cake, or bundt pan baked cake. The bonus to the individual size servings is that you have a delightfully honey-caramelized surface area around each of the honey cakes. Plenty of crispy edges to enjoy, which is the best part of the cake!
❤️ Why I Love This Recipe
Easy to Make! These tasty, honey-sweetened cakes are incredibly easy to mix up, pop in the oven, and enjoy with either a simple honey drizzle or topped with frosting. Yum!
So Flavorful! With just a few simple, staple pantry ingredients you can make these little cakes that pack ALOT of flavor!
Those Caramelised Edges! I can't say it enough, the edges on mini-honey cakes are to die for! Of course, baking up a honey cake in a loaf pan or bundt pan is still tasty but these are my go-to for the best all-around honey cakes!
🥘 Ingredients
Gather up your staple baking ingredients, some honey, spices, and orange juice, coffee, or tea and get ready to enjoy these cakes in no time!
- All-Purpose Flour - The bulk of your cakes and a staple ingredient in most baking.
- Baking Powder& Baking Soda - For the leavening of the cakes, you'll need both of these baking staples for the perfect texture and rise.
- Salt - Just a pinch to highlight all of the tasty flavors and keep the honey cakes from being overly sweet.
- Coconut Oil - You can use your preferred oil or butter (or applesauce), but I really love coconut oil for baking.
- Honey - One of the must-have ingredients in honey cakes, right?!
- Sugars - I use a mix of granulated suagr and light brown sugar for the best texture and flavor in my mini cakes.
- Egg- Just one egg to make these cakes come together perfectly.
- Vanilla Extract - This is one of those ingredients that adds flavor, but also heightens all of the wonderful ingredients' flavors too.
- Orange Juice (or coffee, or strong tea) - Adds the perfect amount of citrus flavor. If you opt for anything else a good black tea would be my second choice.
- Ground Cloves - This warm baking spice makes everything better and adds a unique flavor that compliments the orange and honey in these tasty cakes.
🔪 Instructions
Make the Cake Batter
1 2 3 4
- Preheat. Start with setting your oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and grease your muffin pan with a light layer of oil or non-stick cooking spray.
- Combine dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the dry ingredients including: 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, and a pinch of salt. Use your spoon to give them a quick stir, just enough so that the baking powder, baking soda, and salt are distributed throughout the flour.
- Add wet ingredients. Add ⅓ cup coconut oil, ⅓ cup honey (heated slightly if needed), ½ cup granulated sugar, 3 tablespoons light brown sugar, 1 large egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and ½ cup of orange juice. *Orange juice is my personal preference, strong brewed coffee or tea can also be used as a substitution or in combination with orange juice. I also zested an orange and used fresh-squeezed orange juice as the flavor is better (in my opinion) than concentrated orange juice.
- Combine. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until the flour is just incorporated to the batter, being careful not to over-mix the cake batter.
- Portion into muffin tin. Divide the dough into 12 cupcake liners or muffin pan cavities. I use a cookie dough scoop, or ice cream scooper that has the thumb lever or press. Typically with the scoop ⅔ full, it will fill my muffin pans half way full.
Bake the Honey Cakes
- Bake. Transfer the muffin trays to the middle of the center rack in your preheated oven and bake at 350ºF (175ºC) for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake centers comes out clean. Remove the baked honey cakes from the oven and transfer the pan to a wire cooling rack.
- Cool and serve. Allow the honey cakes to cool completely, then use a butter knife to circle around the cakes edges and pop the mini honey cakes out. *These honey cakes will pop out of the pan while still warm, and can be served that way. Cool completely if you plan on adding icing or frosting.
Optional Finishing Touches for your Honey Cakes
Your honey cakes can be coated with a thin layer of watered-down honey when done, and/or topped with frosting as seen here in the photos. I prefer to brush a tablespoon of heated honey, that has been watered down with just a drizzle of water, over the tops of my honey cakes using a pastry brush.
The icing in the photos is a simple buttercream flavored with orange extract. I used 4 tablespoons of room temperature unsalted butter, a drizzle of cream, a half teaspoon of orange extract, and about 2 cups of confectioners sugar (use more or less as needed to reach a piping consistency, less is needed for spreading the frosting).
These fantastically crisp-edged cakes are entirely divine without a single addition! Enjoy them just as they are for a flavorful treat!
More Easy Dessert Ideas:
- Apple Dump Cake
- No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
- Pineapple Sunshine Cake
- Preacher Cake (Preachers Delight)
Do you love a recipe you tried? Please leave a 5-star 🌟rating in the recipe card below and/or a review in the comments section further down the page.
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📖 Recipe Card
Honey Cakes
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pinch salt
- ⅓ cup coconut oil
- ⅓ cup honey (+ a little extra for a drizzle)
- ½ cup sugar
- 3 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup orange juice (or coffee or strong tea)
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease your muffin tins with butter, oil, or non-stick cooking spray.
- In a large mixing bowl combine your flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add the coconut oil, honey, sugar, brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, orange juice, and ground cloves. Combine just enough to incorporate the ingredients. Do not overmix.
- Use a cookie dough scoop (about ⅔ full) or spoon out the mixture into your muffin pan cavities. Fill each to about halfway full.
- Set into the center of the preheated oven and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15-18 minutes. The honey cakes are done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely. Use a butter knife to circle around the edges and pop each honey cake out of the pan once cooled.
Lex says
These were wonderful honey cakes. Simple and delicious. I brewed chamomile tea and they had a lovely, floral flavor.
Anonymous says
I just tried making these. Super easy. I happen to like coconut oil, but,... what can be used instead of coconut oil?
Angela @ BakeItWithLove.com says
You can use almost any other vegetable oil.
Jackie says
I made the mini cakes tonight for my family to try and came out perfect. Wonderful recipe.
Tiffany says
The flavor of these is an easy 15/10 they are a favorite of my nieces too!
I have made these several times, following your instructions exactly, but they fall and overflow every time. When I fill them with only half way up, they still fall. The messy bits are still delicious.
Any idea of what I could be doing wrong?
Angela @ BakeItWithLove.com says
A couple of things to note:
1 - Make sure that you only look through the oven glass, or if you have to open the oven do it VERY gently. The slightest bump can make these fall.
2 - The cakes have to be fully baked. If there is the slightest indent leave them in the oven to finish cooking. Also, if your oven temp is off the bake time might be off too. Always test the center of the cake after it is fully risen and springs back to the touch when you press a finger into the tops of these honey cakes.
3 - The leavening agents may be overactive. Reduce the baking powder from 1 teaspoon to 3/4 teaspoon to see if that helps if the above culprits have been ruled out.
Hope that helps with the troubleshooting. You're always welcome to let me know the specifics of what you're running into. 🙂
Tiffany says
Wow! Thank you so much for your response. I will try your tips and hope for the best!
Tiffany Brewster says
Thanks again for your help! I reduced the baking powder as suggested. They still didn't have a dome like a muffin would, but the indentation was less noticeable. My nieces requested these specifically last night, so they will be very happy! I'll keep trying to tweak it to get a cake like puff. Thanks again!
Cindi says
would these stick, if I put the batter in paper cupcake liners?
Angela @ BakeItWithLove.com says
They might, but you can spray the liners, and that should be OK.
Riëtte Mostert says
I baked your honey spiced cakes and they came out beautifully! I substituted the white and brown sugar with môre honey, ( I used one cup of honey in the recipe) and added one teaspoon of mixed spices instead of the cloves. I also used black coffee in the place of orange juice. Everyone loved it!
Julie Tracy says
Not for me. Taste wasn't great Maybe it would taste better if icould be made without all the other sugars.
Not a great texture (I figured this must have been a mistake on my part)
Kirsten Perry says
Can I make these ahead of time and if so, for how long do they store and how should I store them?
Angela @ BakeItWithLove.com says
These honey cakes can be a made a day or two in advance if you plan on sharing them at an event or occasion. They will be OK at room temperature (in an airtight container) for 1-2 days. To store longer, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for up to 4-5 days. Thanks for asking!
Sarah says
Ayooo this is by far one of the best things I've ever baked, your recipe format is fire thank you for adding measurements in the directions, all the measurements are perfect and the baking time is *chef's kiss*. Was unsure about the orange juice at first but it brightens it just enough. LOVE IT
Renee Coursey says
I am reading a book right now that talked about honey cakes so then I googled it and your recipe was the one with the most stars! So I am going to try it. Not sure why cloves would be needed but maybe they are the little surprise in the background! I can't rate your recipe yet since I have not made it yet, but when I do, I will rate it. Thank you.
Tried your honey cakes and they were excellent. Although I didn’t see how much ground cloves to add? says
Tried your honey cakes and they were excellent. Although I didn’t see how much ground cloves to add?
Angela @ BakeItWithLove.com says
They're the last ingredient in the recipe card, use ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves. You can start with less if you're not a fan of cloves. Enjoy! And thanks for asking!
Nancy says
Delicious !!!! .Used fresh orange juice and approximately 1/2 tsp orange zest.....new favorite muffin and I found you do not really need any frosting or glaze on them. Delicious as is while still warm. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Sarah Threlkeld says
I baked them the first time out of curiosity, but everyone loves them, so now they are a family favorite. I bake them in cakelet pans and they hold the design beautifully.
Anonymous says
How long do you cook them in the cakelet pan?
percy says
used coffee because i hate orange juice, really good! topped with some lemon buttercream 👌🏽