A while ago a friend asked me for a honey cake recipe for Rosh Hashanah.

But not just any old honey cake recipe. She said she’d had enough mediocre and even unpleasant honey cakes to last a lifetime. Complaining that most cakes were too dry, too sweet, too heavily spiced, or not spiced heavily enough, she asked me for the perfect recipe. She even threatened to swear off honey cake altogether if I didn’t give her one.

Well, I couldn’t let that happen.…