Frank's Recipes! Traditional Honey Cake of Madeira (Bolo de Mel da Madeira)

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Traditional Honey Cake of Madeira (Bolo de Mel da Madeira)

You certainly will be a little frightened when you see the quantities. This recipe is the traditional recipe used in the small villages of Madeira, where the cakes were always baked at the big common oven in the village, because nobody had an oven in their house. Because of big families and the expected visits, but also because Honey Cake was thought to be served throughout the year, every family had to make several cakes. Even though today the common ovens are used less, I left the big quantities, because it is easy to transform the main ingredients into smaller portions - I hope. I transformed the metric into American measures, but left the metric in brackets (), for easy control. Hope you enjoy!

9 ounces (250 g) bread dough from the baker's shop
90 ounces (2.5 kg) flour
35 ounces (1 kg) sugar
26 ounces (750 g) "banha", this is pork fat
17 ounces (500 g) butter
1 ounce (25 g) erva-doce, this is anise herbs, mashed and sifted
1.75 ounce (50 g) canela, which is cinnamon
1 ounce (25 g) cravinho da india, which are cloves in powder form
17 ounces (500 g) walnut, cut into halves
9 ounces (250 g) almonds, grinded in the cutter
1.75 ounce (50 g) candied lemon peel, cut into cubes
60 ounces (1.8 lt) pure honey
5 Tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda, (dissolved in the Madeira Wine)
1 cup of Madeira Wine
4 oranges, first rape the skin and keep, then get the juce of them

One day before making the cake buy the bread-dough at the baker's shop, sprinkle a little bit of flour on the dough, put it in a towel and keep it in a warm place until the next day. Put the bicarbonate of soda into the Madeira, dissolve. In a pan warm up the honey, mix the butter and pork fat (if not available, just use butter), dissolve. Let this mixture cool down. Sift flour into a bowl, mix in the sugar, shape a crater and put the bread dough in the middle. Now work the flour-sugar-mixture into the bread dough. As soon as this is well mixed, start to incorporate little by little the (tepid) honey-fat-mixture. Mix (part of) the candied lemon peel, the cup of Madeira Wine, orange juce and raped orange skin, anise, cinnamon, cloves. Incorporate and knead thoroughly until the dough doesn't stick to the bowl. Cover the dough with a towel and put it in a warm cover. Keep it in a warm place for 3-4 days. Divide the dough into parts of 250g or 500g or 750 g, depending on the forms to put into the oven. This cake is made in wide, round forms which are rather low. Before going into the oven, the cake is decorated with half-walnuts, sliced almonds and (the rest of) candied lemon peel. Grease the baking forms, bake about 50 minutes 355 F (180 C). Let cool down before taking out of baking form.

In Madeira these honey cakes are made on 8 December, the day of Mary's Conception, because tradition says this cake only is good for Xmas if it is made on this day. It is the custom to make enough of this cake in order to have some during the entire year. Once cooled down and thouroughly wrapped into vegetable paper it remains good until next Xmas without loosing quality or taste. Seems a little bit long, but who knows? I think the cake is so good that it NEVER survives that long!