The World That Was - 11th Century Honey Cakes from Byzantium

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!

Today, I'll be taking a look at a medieval Byzantine honey cake - which itself is based on an earlier Greek iron-age cake, amphiphon. This is going to be a light, fluffy cake with a rich, honey flavour!

In any case, let's now take a look at the world that was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like what you see, consider supporting me over on Patreon!

Ingredients

1 cup flour

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup walnuts

salt

orange rind

1 - Cream the Sugar and Butter

To begin with, toss about 3/4 of a cup of room-temperature butter into a mixing bowl. Into this, place about 3/4 of a cup of sugar. Mix everything together using a wooden spoon, smearing the butter into the sugar along the side of the bowl. Do this until it takes on a rich, creamy texture. At this stage, beat three eggs into the mixture, taking care to mix them all thoroughly before progressing!

2 - Add Dry Ingredients

Next, toss in about a cup's worth of plain flour, along with a pinch of salt. Mix this together into a smooth batter. If it's looking a little dry, add a tiny splash of milk to rehydrate it a little.

When the whole thing is combined, and still sticking to the side of the bowl, toss in about a half a cup of roughly crushed walnuts. While it's stated that walnuts are served alongside this dish, it's likely that they would have also been baked into the cakes, which help soften the nuts.

3 - Prepare Tin

Using the butter wrapper, grease a baking tin. While metal tins were likely used in late antiquity/the early medieval period, stoneware would have also been widely used! The original recipe doesn't seem to discuss baking instruments, so I opted for using a shallow square dish.

When it's been greased sufficiently, grate the rind of an orange into the dish. Though oranges and lemons were seemingly grouped together as "citron" in antiquity, we can assume that cooks would have known the difference between the two. So, I used an orange, as it pairs nicely with the honey and the walnuts here.

4 - Bake

When the tin is prepared, pour your batter into the dish. Make sure it's spread evenly across it, so it all bakes at the same rate. If you want, you can dust the top of your cake with ground cinnamon. Keep in mind that this will brown faster than your cake will, so it may look burnt in the oven, but really it will only be barely cooked!

Place your tin into the centre of an oven preheated to about 200F or 175C for about a half an hour, or until the edges of your cake have browned and turned crisp!

5 - Finish Cake

Take it out of the oven when it's done, and let it cool to room temperature. But before it's fully cooled, pour a good amount of honey over the whole thing! This will let the whole cake become infused with the sweetness of the honey!

When the cake has fully cooled, cut it into segments, and serve up with some walnuts!

The finished cakes are wonderfully light and sweet! The caramelised orange rind on the base gives a wonderful zesty kick to the honey taste. The cake rises a fair bit due to the number of eggs used, but retains a great airy texture. 

The older iteration of this dish, ampiphon, was seen as a votive offering to Artemis - according to the Greek writer Philochorus. They were supposed to be representative of brighter days, and from the airiness of them, you can see why!