Spruce Tip Honey Loaf Cake

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Spruce tips have distinct resinous pine with slight lemon flavor, that pairs beautifully with the earthy sweetness of honey in this spruce tip honey loaf cake. Fresh, deeply fragrant spruce tips are infused into a honey laced batter and baked to a deep, golden brown. If you’ve harvested spruce tips and are wondering “what to bake with spruce tips?” Make this simple loaf cake! The below recipe is easy and uses pantry ingredients you already have on hand. The result is a deeply fragranced snacking cake that is as satisfying on a spring morning as it is on cold winter evening. Serve this cake warm by the slice slathered in honey or paired with homemade spruce tip lemon curd.

The Spruce Tips

Harvest spruce tips in early spring, when the pine trees just start to bud. Spruce tips can be removed from the tree by simply “pinching” off the bough. If you want to make this recipe in the fall or winter months, store your foraged harvest in the freezer; spruce tips freeze well. Look for bright, soft tips; you want to harvest the tips early before they become hard. I like to freeze a batch of spruce tips for cooking later in the year. Here in the Hudson Valley, NY; spruce tips burst open towards the middle of May depending on the weather that year. This foraged evergreen cake with honey is perfect for serving around the holiday season and in the winter months.

Spruce tips are one of the most overlooked ingredients on the spring foraging calendar – find out what else is worth harvesting this season in the full spring foraging guide.

Simple Ingredients

Spruce tip honey loaf cake is baked with simple pantry staple ingredients; Flour, brown sugar, butter, eggs, and honey. And of course the main ingredient: freshly foraged spruce tips.

The Batter

The batter for this spruce tip honey cake mixes up thick, its laden with honey and spruce tip infused butter. Dont worry about the shape of the batter before placing in the oven, it will smooth out as it bakes. Lightly butter the sides of the pan, just dont go overboard; this batter has a good amount of butter in it and doesn’t need much. Mixing the cake batter is simple and requires 2 bowls. One for dry ingredients, the other for wet.

Why Infuse the Butter

Fat (butter) is a quick way to add flavor using the infusion method.

Melting the butter until in liquid, then stirring the foraged spruce tips in quickly extracts the piney, resinous flavor into the butter. I found when creating this recipe adding the spruce tips to butter created a distinct flavor (spruce tip infused honey did not create the deep piney flavor I wanted in this simple bake.)

Honey and Brown Sugar

Both honey and brown sugar have distinct, toasty flavor profiles, that are perfect for this deep, earthy cake. The combination of honey and brown sugar adds just enough moisture to pick up the pine sap from the spruce tips. This cake batter in meant to be thick, when done mixing, it should come clean out of the bowl.

If you love honey in baking these chamomile honey madeleines are another delicate, quietly special bake worth keeping in your rotation.

Serving Suggestions:

This dark, moist cake can be eaten plain by the slice, its deep sweetness and forest flavor are a delight alone! However; I like to top it with a sweets, spreadable condiment. Below are a few of my suggestions. Depending on the season you bake this cake in the spring or the winter ( this Christmas tree tip cake recipe is perfect for the holidays!) keep the topping simple to truly let the foraged spruce tip flavor shine thru.

• Spread with homemade curd, my spruce tip lemon curd goes perfectly on this cake.
• Drizzle with honey; a spoonful of honey makes this cake a little sweeter and brings the honey swirled throughout the batter to the tip of your tongue.
• A dollop of whipped cream; just enough to add a light airy contrast to this rich, thick loaf pan bake.

If you don’t have the curd on hand a spoonful of stewed apples with bay leaf and honey alongside a warm slice is another beautiful pairing – especially for holiday serving

When To Serve this Foraged Spruce Tip Dessert

Serve this foraged cake recipe as a simple snacking cake or set out as an sweet dessert ending for a meal. This loaf cake is the perfect ending to a spring meal or served as a dessert spread during a holiday open house. An enticing spruce tip holiday baking idea; this pine infused honey cake is a unique and (literally on point) Christmas tree themed dessert. I like to freeze a batch of spruce tips and keep them long after spring has ended for winter baking.

Storage

Store the remainder of your loaf cake tightly wrapped, at room temperature for up to 5 days.

If you freeze a batch of spruce tips in spring for holiday baking this cake is just as beautiful in December alongside a jar of apple cider spiced jam – the warm spiced apple and piney spruce are a natural pairing.

Recipe Variations

Try some of these ideas or add in your own to create a unique flavor variation:

Add in grated lemon zest; spruce tips have a slight lemon flavor, adding lemon zest will bring it out even more.

Try pine or fir tips instead of spruce tips.

Serve this loaf cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a decadent dessert.

Spruce tip season is short – a few weeks in early spring before the tips harden and the window closes until next year. This cake is worth making the moment you find them, and worth freezing a batch for December when the piney warmth of spruce feels completely right. Don’t forget the companion recipe – the spruce tip lemon curd is what takes this cake from quietly lovely to genuinely unforgettable