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beehive cake


mklynch

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My oldest friend is turning 50 and I'm hosting the surprise party. She is a beekeeper and we are using that as a theme. I'd like to make a beehive dessert. I have an idea for a meringue dome that I could stuff with icecream but am looking for other ideas.

Also need ideas for bee related decorations for whatever I make. I saw a caramelized sugar beeswax thing years ago but can't find it in any of my books.

Any ideas? Thanks!

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If you have access to Nigella Lawson's Feast book, she has a really nice looking cake with marzipan bees on it...

The bees are made of marzipan that has been dyed yellow. The wings are sliced almond and the stripes and eyes are put on with chocolate via a parchment piping bag. Very cute.

If you have a specialty cooking shop nearby, you might look for beehive molds. I got some a few years ago - three in a pack, ranging from one bite to three bite sizes. Apparently you fill them with Ganache, and put a cookie on the bottom. Then when it's hard, you unmold them. The molds are hinged so they open up.

Don't try to win over the haters. You're not the jackass whisperer."

Scott Stratten

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staying with nigella for a moment, there is a very tasy honey semifreddo in one of her other books, foreversummer I think...

otherwise, a honey mouse? maybe in a chocolate shell....

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Think of expiration, better read the label now.

Spam breakfast, dinner or lunch.

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There's a bee cake in the Cake Bible, but I can't remember the components.

I've also seen (maybe even in the above recipe) directions for using bubblewrap to make indentations, so a cake will resemble a honeycomb. It looked really fun. I'll try to find where I saw it.

Life is short. Eat the roasted cauliflower first.

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This is probably too silly, but I was thinking of cartoons or nature flicks where a bear comes across a log filled with a hive and honey... Could make a buche de noel type log cake. Honey mousse could emerge from a split or crack or maybe a "hole" from a branch. Bees would be flying around in the area of the honey... (It appeals to me b/c a log seems eastier to make than a hive).

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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There's a bee cake in the Cake Bible, but I can't remember the components.

I've also seen (maybe even in the above recipe) directions for using bubblewrap to make indentations, so a cake will resemble a honeycomb.  It looked really fun.  I'll try to find where I saw it.

That's the one..I've made it and it turned out ok. You make the mousse and pour it into a crust, then press on the bubble wrap and freeze it. Then pull off the bubble wrap and pour on a glaze and decorate with bees made from ganache and sliced almonds.

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If you have a pudding bowl, you can make a steamed pudding/cake in it to give you the traditional basic shape.

You can make rolled fondant, form it into long rolls, flatten slightly on one side and "build" the beehive around the outside of the cake, just as you would a coiled clay bowl upside down. Pressing the coils of fondant together will seal the edges of the coils.

You can then use the tines of a fork to cross hatch the fondant to make it look like the straw "rope" from which the old-fashioned beehives were formed.

Depending on how big a cake you need, you could actually make a sheet cake, then mount the above construction onto it and decorate the flat sheet like a garden surrounding the beehive.

I think the idea of marzipan bees is delightful.

Edited by andiesenji (log)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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If you do a Google image search of ""beehive cake" you will get several photo's for ideas. :smile: You could make the bees from fondant and attach them to wire so they appear to be flying over the cake.

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If you're short on time, or prefer the taste of buttercream over fondant, you can use a large tip (Ateco 7 or 8) and pipe lines of honey-colored buttercream around the sculpted cake (you could stack a round cake and sculpt the edges to resemble the slope of the hive).

For the marzipan bees, if you have sheet gelatine, cut the wing shapes from that and paint them with watered down yellow color so they're a little more visible

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There is something of a classic german cake called Bienenstich kuchen that translates to bee sting cake.

It is a moist cake flavored with almond. Surprisingly when I google up recipes none have honey...I just assumed it would.

Not as fun as creating a cake that looks like a beehive, though.

Stephen Bunge

St Paul, MN

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One quick note about using buttercream. It does not have the volume strength of fondant and may collapse as more layers are added. I speak from experience, having tried one time to build up a "rock-garden" on the bottom tier of an offset tiered cake. I finally had to scrape all the buttercream off and made fondant "rocks" that I shaped and airbrushed to look like rocks. Would you believe that three days after I finished the job, the cake/candy supply place got in their first shipment of the candy "pebbles" that would have been perfect.

Anyway that last bit is OT but you do have to consider what is going to hold the buttercream up and in place.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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I was going to suggest bienenstich also -- while it may not contain honey, it's absolutely delicious!

There is something of a classic german cake called Bienenstich kuchen that translates to bee sting cake.

It is a moist cake flavored with almond.  Surprisingly when I google up recipes none have honey...I just assumed it would.

Not as fun as creating a cake that looks like a beehive, though.

Sherri A. Jackson
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When's the party? Somewhere in this house is a tablecloth---a 60" round one, brown, which I gold-sprayed with little bees and skeps for a Groom's table in '01. The cake was a three-tiered square, poured ganache over whipped ganache, stencil-powdered with gold dust bees and skeps.

It was quite striking, with roses and leaves made of double-chocolate ganache for stability in piping.

I can't wait to see your pics of the cake!!!

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My first thought was to construct a beehive with cream puffs filled with a honey custard and drizzle a honey syrup over the exterior then decorate with the aforementioned marzipan bees.

Lots of great ideas on this thread.

"Eat it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." TMJ Jr. R.I.P.

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The party is on June 4th, so I have some time to play with this. I got some molds for chocolate of bees, boneycomb, hives and flowers and planned to make chocolates as gifts for the guests. I can play with different fillings for decorations for the cake. I think I will do a mirengue hive and the chiffon pie from the Pastry Bible as well. I make caremelized sugar ice cream and that got me wondering if you can caremelize honey. Anyone know? I'll give it a try if not.

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If you check out old issues of Pastry Art & Design Vicky Wells did a cute beehive dessert. I think it is from about 1998.

I have the recipe but of course not with me - I can post it on Monday.

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The dessert is called Anise-Honey Beehive

Composed of 3 circles of genoise: 3”; 2”; 1 1/2”

With anise mouse in between each layer and then piped around the outside in rings so the whole thing looks like a beehive

No reason that you could not do something similar with a full sized cake that actually tasted good

Personally I do not care for anise so I would go more for a honey, lemon combo

But the recipe in question utilizes genoise baked off in sheets and cut in circles as described.

Licorice essence (3 sticks licorice root boiled 1 hour in 1 liter water-I recall that you allow it to reduce)

Honey syrup (120 g honey, 120g water, 10g anisette brought to boil and set aside)

Honey lemon coulis (120g honey, 120g lemon juice, 1 star anise brought to boil for 30 seconds and set aside)

Anise Mousse composed of a crème anglaise (300g milk, 50 sugar, 5 yolks) cooled

Bloom 3 gelatin sheets and melt into 25g Licorice Essence then add to anglicize

Let anglicize partially set up

150g heavy cream whipped to soft peak

Italian Meringue (200g sugar, 200g whites)

Fold half of the whipped cream into the anglaise, half into the meringue then fold together

Use honey syrup to soak cake circles

Pipe mousse onto 3” layer, top with 2” layer and pipe with mousse, top with 1 1/2” layer and pipe extra mousse around to create beehive appearance

Chill until ready to serve. Serve with Honey-Lemon Coulis decorate with marzipan bees

Chef Vicky Wells from Pastry art & Design and FCI pastry program

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I'm sorry, I guess I got away from your original question.

I used to do individual baked alaskas using a beehive design, all the time at another CC. Theres a photo of this in Bo Friebergs book (if you own it). It's basicly cake with a scoop of ice cream then the meringue piped around it which gets torched. The hive is set in a clear pink tinged sauce on the plate and I think he puts an edible flower on top of the hive. Simple and elegant. I think it would be much simplier then piping out a hive, then drying it and filling it.......and equally as tastie.

Piping these out those centerpiece cakes was rediculously fun and easy. I think they looked best when I didn't try to keep them perfect....actually if you whip thru it rather organticly they'll look more natural/elegant imo. Piping out individual beehives you have to work fast and close to your freezer.

I also like meringue powder for items I freeze, verses fresh meringues. The powdered stuff is so durable and freezer hardy.

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