Mother's Day Honey Cake with Orange Blossom Glaze

I am fortunate enough to have friends who have bee hives.  Their honey is succulent and to die for.  They gave my mother and I each a jar of prize golden honey for Mother's Day.  It tastes better than any I've ever had. Later in the year, the honey is darker due to the magnolias, something I never knew.  Honey bees have been subject to something called colony collapse disorder (CCD) since 2006 and that's a really big deal because so much of our agriculture relies on those little buzzer to pollinate our crops.  They've blamed everything from pesticides to microwaves but it does seem environmental stressors are the problem.  Anyway, I decided to use some of their fine product in a Honey Cake.  Honey Cakes are typically associated with Jewish holidays but this is Mother's Day, a universal celebration of those women who have loved us, nurtured us, forgiven us. My Mother's Day was sweetened immeasurably with the news that I will be a grandmother in November. What could be sweeter than a Mother's love.  Honey is a pretty close second.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground clove
 3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
1 cup pure honey
3/4 cup lukewarm coffee(brewed or instant in water)
1 1/2 tsp orange zest

Heat oven to 350 degrees with rack in middle.  Spray  a 10 inch tube pan with baking spay. Wisk together flour, baking powder and soda, salt and spices in a large bowl of an electic mixer.  Wisk eggs  in another large bowl and whisk in sugar, oil, honey, coffee until well conbined.  Using the paddle attachment, add 1/3 of the egg mixture until encorporated, add the next third  and mix, scraping down the sides as necessary. Add the last third and mix until smooth. Add the zest and mix until just incorporated.  Pour into tube pan and bake until springy to touch and tester comes out clean, 45-50 minutes.  Cool 20 minutes in pan on a cake rack before inverting onto cake rack to cool throughly.

Glaze; 1/2 cup confectionser sugar; 1 tsp honey; two tbls orange juice.  Mix throughly and drizzle over warm cake.