Hazelnut Honey Cake

This is another variation on the honey cake recipe that I had made earlier, I thought the flavour would taste great, and it did, Banana Honey Cake. I found the original base recipe long ago, called Devonshire Honey Cake, it originally came, as I understand, from BBC GoodFood Magazine's 101 Cakes and Bakes. I had had in the back of my mind for a while to try it with ground hazelnuts instead of bananas, I thought it too would taste great. As to how much ground hazelnuts to use, I took the amount from another recipe I have, it called for 6 ounces and that seemed about right. The cake came out very nutty, with a honey-toffee underlying flavour, very nice. Again, it was well received at work. One lady at work gave me an idea for the next variation, that would be Banana Hazelnut Honey Cake. Hmm... Mmmmm...

Hazelnut Honey Cake
225 g sweet butter
250 g runny honey
100 g dark muscovado sugar
3 large eggs
300 g (2-1/4 cups) self-rising flour
175 g (6 oz.) ground hazelnuts
2 Tbsp honey (for glazing)

Preheat oven to 300F. Grease a 9-inch springform pan. Cut a circle out of parchment paper and place on bottom of springform.

Melt butter, honey, and sugar slowly in a saucepan. Boil for one minute. Leave to cool (caramel will thicken).

Beat in eggs one at a time in the saucepan. Whisk in flour into egg caramel mixture in two batches. Mix the ground hazelnuts well into the flour mixture with a whisk.

Pour into the greased pan and bake for 50-55 minutes or until cake is golden brown and spring back when pressed.

Turn out the cake onto a wire rack. Warm 2 Tbsp honey in a small saucepan and brush over the top of the cake to glaze. Leave to cool.