Bee Sting Cake

Bienenstich or Bee Sting Cake originates from Germany. It's a light and airy yeast cake with a rich vanilla custard or cream filling and a crunchy honey almond top. While we call it cake, it actually has more in common with a honey sweetened Italian Panettone or a French brioche loaf.

It is quite a complicated recipe as there's 3 elements we need to make, the cake itself, the filling and the topping. However it's not as difficult as it might appear and the results are well worth the effort! We've kept the basic cake recipe fairly traditional with a few Just Bee tweaks and some changes for modern convenience.

To make our (Just) Bee Sting Cake you will need:

• 60ml of Milk
• 60g of Unsalted Butter
• 2 Tbsp of Just Bee Honey
• 2 Large Eggs
• 275g Bread Flour
• 1 ¾ Tsp of Fast Action Dried Yeast
• ¼ Tsp of Salt

For the topping:

• 60g of Unsalted Butter
• 2 Tbsp of Just Bee Honey
• 2 Tbsp Golden Caster Sugar
• 90g of Almond Flakes
• ½ Tsp of Vanilla Extract

For the filling:

• 25g Custard Powder (non-instant Birds original or similar)
• 170ml Milk
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 100g Unsalted Butter
• 2 Tbsp of Double Cream
• 1 Tsp of Vanilla Extract

• A small saucepan
• A mixing bowl
• A 20cm springform cake tin

Part One: Making the Cake Dough.

1: First add the butter, milk and honey to a small saucepan. Stir gently over a low heat until the butter is fully melted. Then take the pan off the heat and put aside to cool.

2: Next add the flour, yeast and salt to a mixing bowl and give the dry ingredients a quick mix together with a fork, then add the eggs and the butter mix from the saucepan. Using a spatula bring the ingredients together until you have a rough sticky dough.

3: Dust your work surface with a little flour and knead the dough for 5-7 minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic. It may feel too sticky at first, but don't worry, just keep the surface dusted with flour and keep kneading and it will soon start to form into a nice soft dough.

4: Wipe the inside of the mixing bowl with a little oil and put the dough ball back in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave somewhere warm to rise for the next hour.

Part Two: Making the Topping.

1: You can make the topping in the same saucepan you used before to save washing up. Add the butter, honey and sugar and heat on medium-low hob, stirring continuously until the mixture begins to bubble.

2: Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and then the flaked almonds. Put aside to cool down.

Part Three: Creating and Baking.

1: When the hour has passed the dough should have doubled in size. Transfer it to the springform pan and press it down gently so it fills the bottom of the pan evenly. This can be quite tricky as the dough is quite elastic and it might feel more like making a pizza than a cake, but take your time and go slowly and you'll eventually have the bottom of the pan covered evenly with the dough.

2: Next pour all the topping from the saucepan over the dough, using a silicon spatula get everything out of the saucepan and then spread the almonds across the top of the dough so it's fully covered.

3: Cover the pan and allow the cake to rise again in a warm place for a further 30 minutes. If you are struggling to find a warm place in a cold kitchen, then put the oven on to pre-heat now and put the cake near or on top of the oven to rise. Otherwise after about 20 minutes- preheat the oven to 180c (160c for a fan assisted oven) or gas mark 4.

4: After the cake has had a full 30 minutes to rise, pop it in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes to bake. It should look a lovely golden brown all over. You will be surprised how much the cake has grown from when you first pushed the dough into the bottom of the pan!

5: Remove from the oven and set aside to cool in the pan.

Part 4: Making the filling.

Note: If you have an electric whisk, food processer or blender gadget I would highly recommend using it to make the final filling. It will be easier to achieve a smooth silky texture and remove the arm work out!

1: Add the custard powder to a saucepan, then while stirring with a fork gradually add the milk and half of the sugar (50g)

2: Stirring continuously bring the mixture to a boil on a low hob and continue until the mixture turns thick. Be careful as this can happen quite suddenly and dramatically. As soon as you see it starting to change into a thick custard take it off the heat and continue to stir so it doesn't burn or over cook.

3: Pop the custard mix into a bowl and put some cling-film directly onto it to stop a skin forming while it cools.

4: Next beat the butter and the other half of the sugar together until soft and creamy.

5: Now it's simply a matter of blending the custard mix, butter mix, double cream and vanilla extract all together to create a creamy smooth spreadable filling. If you have an electric blender use that, if not it's time for a lot of hand beating unfortunately.

Part 5: Final Assembly!

1: Run a knife around the edge of the cake, then un-spring the pan, it should be fully cooled by now and have a nice crunchy top.

2: Using a bread knife (or other large serrated knife) cut through the middle of the cake using a gentle sawing action, leaving you with a top and bottom half ready to fill with the filling.

3: Using a spatula spread the filling evenly across the bottom half, then place the top half of the cake back on top of the filling, push down gently until it's seated nicely!

You can either serve as a simple slice with a cuppa or as a dessert with a little extra cream!

We would recommended storing bee sting cake in an airtight container and keeping chilled for a maximum of a few days for it to be at its best.