I was browsing Instagram yesterday and I stopped when I saw a picture of honey cake. “I’m making that,” I said to myself.

The recipe is from Elisabeth Prueitt, the co-owner and co-founder of Tartine Bakery and Tartine Manufactory in San Francisco. I’ve you’ve never been to Tartine, I’d highly recommend changing that as soon as possible. The bakery has some of the best pastries and bread I’ve tasted anywhere including France. Prueitt and her husband, Chad Robertson, really know their stuff.

Which brings me to this honey cake. The recipe is gluten-free. Normally I shy away from those kind of recipes but after looking at the photo of the cake, I couldn’t resist. Plus, Prueitt was talking about how beautiful the crumb was in her Instagram post. A moist crumb is key to delicious cake.

This cake is so many things. It’s moist from Greek yogurt, spicy and fragrant from cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and fresh grated ginger, and tangy from 1/2 cup black tea. Yes, black tea. You can use whatever kind you want but I would recommend steeping three tea bags of English Breakfast tea in hot water and then using 1/2 cup in the recipe.

My litmus test for gluten-free baked goods is, does it taste as good as regular baked goods? This cake tastes as good, if not better, than many honey spice cakes I’ve tried. In fact, it’s better than most cakes I’ve enjoyed recently, which is saying a lot. It reminds me of fall. Also, it made the entire house smell like cinnamon and sugar. I wish I could bottle up the smell and have it all the time.

A word to the wise: The recipe calls for 1 2/3 cup of gluten-free flour, but you can do what I did and use 1 1/3 cup oat flour and 1/3 cup cornstarch. Honestly, you might have gluten-free flour lying around and not oat flour, but if you don’t, it makes more sense to get oat flour and cornstarch. Cornstarch is often used in desserts such as pies and crisps, so it’s a good thing to have on hand.

Make this cake as soon as possible. Liz Prueitt recommends serving it with salted butter and she’s so right. If you put a couple pats of butter on top of the still-warm cake, it will melt and create the perfect combination of salty, sweet, and spicy. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Here’s a song to get you started on your honey spice cake journey.

Honey Spice Cake (from Elisabeth Prueitt)

Ingredients

1 2/3 cup gluten-free flour, or 1 1/3 cup oat flour plus 1/3 cup cornstarch
1 cup almond flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brewed strong black tea
1/3 cup Greek yogurt (I used 5% Fage)
1 1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5 loaf pan and line it with parchment paper. Set aside.

Whisk together the oat flour, cornstarch, almond flour, baking soda, salt, and ground spices in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil, honey, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, tea, Greek yogurt, and ginger. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once and mix quickly to combine. Make sure there are no lumps in the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and place the pan in the oven. Bake the cake for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes and then remove it from the pan. Serve warm with salted butter. Wrap the leftovers in saran wrap to keep them longer. Enjoy!