Practice makes perfect

I'm seeing Alan again on Friday, so it's time for the spiced honey cake take two. Slight tweaks to it this time around, so hopefully it'll be a bit lighter and a bit nicer! The major differences are: I've used self-raising flour on top of the baking powder, there's 40g more flour and I melted the butter so that it could be whisked with the honey and eggs in an effort to incorporate a bit more air into it. The mascarpone is also split between the topping and a sandwich layer now as well.

Spiced Honey Cake Revisited
Ingredients
For the cake

• 220g Butter
• 350g Honey
• 4 Eggs
• 1tsp Vanilla extract
• Zest of one lemon
  
• 290g Self-raising flour
• 2tsp Baking powder
• 1 1/2tsp Cinnamon
• 1 1/2tsp Nutmeg
• 4tsp Ginger

For the sandwich layer and topping

• 250g Mascarpone
• 3tbsp Honey
• 1tsp Vanilla extract
  
• 55g Crystallised ginger
  

Method

1. Melt the butter and honey for the cake together over a double boiler and whisk with a balloon whisk.
2. Whisk in the eggs, vanilla extract and lemon zest.
3. Sift in the dry ingredients and fold in gently.
4. Pour into a lined cake tin and bake at ~160C for 45 minutes.
5. Remove from tin and allow to cool completely on a wire rack
6. Cream the mascarpone, honey for the topping and vanilla extract together.
7. Cut the cake in half horizontally.
8. Spread half of the mascarpone over the base, add the upper half of the cake and spread the remaining mascarpone over the top.
9. Chop the crystallised ginger and sprinkle over the cake.

Here's the cake straight from the oven (step 5). It's a bit dark around the edge - I'll trim off the burnt rim with a sharp knife before finishing it off.Here's the finished cake.