Honey, Hazelnut and Brown Butter Tea Cakes with Herbed Goat Cheese

Courtesy Emily Beggs, adapted from a recipe by David Lebovitz

This recipe highlights the beautiful honey produced at Camp Joy and thyme planted to keep the bees happy, and incorporates goat cheese in honor of Camp Joy’s generous ruminants that have changed many people’s perceptions of goat milk, including my own. The cakes are inspired by the following excerpt, which describes the importance of tea time at the Alan Chadwick Garden, and was written by Camp Joy founding mother Beth Benjamin:

“And then in the late afternoon, as the sun’s rays slanted through the bean trellis, we’d set sprinklers again, and someone would put the kettle on. When it boiled, we’d gather for tea (Earl Grey of course, with sweetened condensed milk, none of that pale herbal nun’s tears) and teaching and stories; then back to work and watering until it was too dark to see.” —From the introduction to The Chadwick Garden Anthology of Poets, edited by Robin Somers.

1 cup hazelnut, almond or walnut flour, seasonally available at the Cabrillo

Farmers Market ½ cup sugar ¼ cup honey 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour Generous pinch salt 4 large egg whites, at room temperature ½ teaspoon vanilla 2½ ounces brown butter, slightly warm (liquified) Preheat the oven to 375º F and, ideally using softened butter, thoroughly grease the insides of mini muffin or madeleine pans.

Combine the hazelnut flour, sugar, allpurpose flour and salt. Stir in the egg whites and vanilla, then add the browned butter and honey.

Fill each pan so that the batter almost reaches the top. Flatten the tops of the cakes by sharply rapping the pans on a counter, then bake for 13 minutes, until golden in color. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans, then flip pans and give them a good shake to release cakes onto a plate or clean counter surface.

Tea Time Herbed Goat Cheese

This grassy, earthy cheese ball makes a great complement to sweet, nutty tea cakes, and can be rolled up in minutes.

Chèvre Fresh thyme Za’atar spice blend (my favorite is from

Burlap & Barrel) Sumac (a vibrant mixture is available at

Burlap & Barrel) Sea salt Honey Edible flowers (we use white society garlic blooms)

Roll a small handful of soft chèvre into a ball. Place fresh thyme leaves on a plate, then roll the ball over them with your palm, so the cheese picks up the leaves.

Next, drizzle the ball with honey and cover the plate with 1 to 2 tablespoons za’atar and sprinkle with a pinch of sumac. Using the same technique, coat the ball with spices.

Drizzle another small amount of honey over the ball before sprinkling it with sea salt and pressing edible flowers onto the surface.

Judy and Allen Hasty

Yellow Wall Farm