Honey Cake Skewers with Honey Caramel Sauce for Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah is coming up, and you know what that means: honey cake, and lots of it! We’ve already shared a fabulous recipe for honey cake on the OhNuts.com blog, and it would be hard to top that one–it’s tender, moist, and packed with flavor from honey and cinnamon pecans.
Instead of trying to compete with perfection, we’re doing a different take on honey cake this year: Pound cake and caramelized apple skewers with a honey caramel dipping sauce. This clever dessert is a fun change from the classic honey cake recipe, but it still manages to bring in traditional Rosh Hashanah ingredients like apples and honey.
These skewers have alternating cubes of buttery pound cake and fragrant caramelized apples. The kicker, though, is the luscious honey caramel sauce served with the skewers. You can drizzle them, dunk them, or just slurp the sauce with a straw–it’s that good! After you taste it with these skewers, you might find yourself making honey caramel sauce on a regular basis–it’s also great on raw apple and pears, as a dip for pretzels, or as an ice cream topping!
This recipe uses prepared pound cake, so there’s no baking involved. All you need to do is simmer the apples in the honey-caramel mixture until tender, wait (impatiently!) while they cool a bit, and then assemble your skewers. It’s a great last-minute dessert, and if you have children, they’ll enjoy threading the skewers and getting to eat their handiwork.
If you’re ready to rock your Rosh Hashanah and try these skewers, you’ll find a full tutorial below. Be sure to scroll to the bottom to find an easily printable recipe and pin-able image. Happy New Year!
Rosh Hashanah Cake Skewers with Honey Caramel Sauce
yield: 8-12 people (makes 24 small 4-piece skewers and 2 cups sauce)
Ingredients
- 1 pound cake (I used an 11 oz frozen pound cake, defrosted)
- 3 large apples
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup (8 oz) butter, cubed
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, lightly packed
- 24 small skewers (4 or 5 inches long)
Cut the pound cake into 8 slices, and cut each slice into 6 pieces, so you have 48 cake cubes. Set the cake aside for now.
Peel and core the apples. Cut each apple into 8 pieces, then cut the pieces in half, for a total of 48 apple pieces. They’ll probably be a little larger than the cake cubes, but they’ll shrink a bit when they cook, so you’ll end up with cake and apple pieces that are about the same size.
Combine the honey, cream, butter, and brown sugar in a large skillet, and place it over medium heat. Stir the mixture occasionally as the butter melts and the sugar dissolves.
Continue to cook the honey-caramel sauce, stirring occasionally, until it comes to a full boil.
Once it’s boiling, add the apple pieces and stir them in.
Cook the apples for about 25 minutes, until they’re golden brown, translucent, and can be easily pierced by a fork.
Here you can see the color, translucency, and soft texture of the finished apples. They shouldn’t be mushy, but they should be easy to spear with a fork.
Remove the apples from the sauce with a slotted spoon, and set them aside to cool. They can be refrigerated to speed up the cooling process. Transfer the caramel sauce to a bowl, and if it has separated, whisk it well until it comes back together.
Once the apples are cool, thread them on the skewers with the pound cake. Serve them with lots of honey-caramel sauce for dipping and drizzling. Enjoy!
Rosh Hashanah Cake Skewers with Honey Caramel Sauce
yield: 8-12 people (makes 24 small 4-piece skewers and 2 cups sauce)
Ingredients
- 1 pound cake (11 oz)
- 3 large apples
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup (8 oz) butter, cubed
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, lightly packed
- 24 small skewers (4 or 5 inches long)
Directions
- Cut the pound cake into 8 slices, then cut each slice into 6 cubes, to give you a total of 48 pieces.
- Peel and core the apples. Cut each apple into 8 pieces, then cut those pieces in half, to give you a total of 48 pieces.
- Combine the honey, cream, butter, and brown sugar in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir while the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Bring the mixture to a boil.
- Once boiling, add the apple pieces and stir them in.
- Continue to cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes, until the apples can be easily pierced with a fork and are translucent.
- Remove the apples from the syrup with a slotted spoon, and let them cool. Transfer the syrup to a bowl. If it has separated, whisk until it comes back together. Let cool to room temperature. If the caramel gets too thick as it cools, add a spoonful or two of cream to thin it out.
- Thread slices of pound cake and apples on the skewers, alternating between cake and apples.
- Serve skewers with room temperature honey caramel sauce for dipping. Whipped cream is another excellent addition.
Now is the perfect time to start planning your Rosh Hashanah Gifts as you can see we have a large selection of Honey Gifts and all the classic Rosh Hashanah items prefect for dipping the apple in the honey.
All text and images (c) Elizabeth LaBau