Rose Prince's Baking Club: honey cake 115g/4oz butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the tin 55g/2oz dark soft brown sugar 6 eggs, separated, then the yolks lightly beaten 150ml/5 ½ oz honey, e.g. heather honey (not too hard set or you will have to warm it before using) 125g/4 ½ oz self-raising flour Pinch of salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp mixed spice 100g/3 ½ oz ground almonds 100g/3 ½ oz chopped walnuts Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and grease a 20cm round or loaf tin with butter (or line with baking parchment). Put the butter and sugar together in a bowl and beat until pale and creamy. Gradually beat in the egg yolks, adding little by little (this helps stop the cake curdling), then add the honey. Sift the flour, salt and spices together and fold into the mixture with the almonds and walnuts. Finally, whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold gently into the mixture. Incidentally, since making the Saxe Coburg cake roulades (Baking Club, May 19) I have become a convert to "folding"" using the technique of dipping - by hand - a large balloon whisk through the mixture. It is much less disruptive to the airiness of the mixture. Bake for about one hour. The cake is cooked when an inserted skewer comes out clean. Due to the ground almonds and walnuts, the cake will be level or even slightly sunken. Eat spread with butter or on its own. Keeps for up to a fortnight in a tin or container. I do not like to ice cakes like this, but for grandeur a fudge icing with walnuts might be gooily good. Variations: reader Christopher Leach, who grew up in Bermuda, tells me he remembers eating a similar cake with banana, so try adding two small mashed bananas when you fold in the nuts. You could also try it with grated courgette, adding one medium-size one at the same stage. The Baking Club will tackle vegetable cakes (carrot, beetroot, squash, courgette etc) at a later date. The heat is on Madeira cake, April 28. Oodles of sorries to the many who wrote to say I never gave the oven temperature for this cake. In my gas oven, tested with a separate oven thermometer, it cooks at 180C/350F/Gas 4. A fan oven should be set at 170C/325F/ Gas 3. It took only 40 minutes to cook in my oven but many Baking Clubbers wrote in to say it took longer. Anyone out there who is new to making cakes may want to use the skewer test below to check if they are cooked. This will deal with oven variations, which have ruined many a baking experiment. The skewer test: peep at the cake 10 minutes before the given cooking time. If it has risen and taken on a little colour from cooking, and feels just firm to touch, insert a clean skewer into the centre of the cake. Pull it out at once. If any wet mixture sticks to the skewer, the cake is not cooked and should be tested again in 10 minutes. If the skewer is clean or there are dry crumbs on it, the cake is cooked. Next week's ingredients: I'll be making raspberry loaf cake, the perfect summer tea-time accompaniment. You will need butter, caster sugar, flour, eggs and 300g (11oz) fresh rasberries. Also pack of 12 Bakers presentation loaf moulds, from lakeland.co.uk.