Apricot Bee Cake
Buzz, buzz, buzz! With the start of summer, it won't be long before bees are about their businesses, pollinating flowers and making some honey. And while we can't make the warm summer months last longer, with this recipe, we can certainly bring you some bees to brighten up your day. Just follow our instructions and you'll be enjoying this fruity, juicy dessert in no time!
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
- 4 egg yolks
- 6 egg whites, whipped
- 2 cups milk
- 2 packages vanilla pudding mix
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 cups sour cream
- 1 jar apricot jam 18 oz
- 1 cup water
- 6 sheets gelatin or 6 tsp unflavored gelatin powder
- 12 apricot halves from the can
- 2 oz dark chocolate, melted
- 1 tbsp white chocolate, melted
- 1 sliced almonds
Instructions
- For the cake base, first mix the dry ingredients together. Then add the vegetable oil, water, and egg yolks and beat with an electric whisk until frothy. Carefully fold in the whipped egg whites, pour the batter into a deep sheet pan, smooth it out, and bake in a preheated oven set to 350°F for 15 minutes.
- In the meantime, prepare the pudding cream. Before heating the milk in a pan, take several spoons of it and use it to dissolve the pudding mix. Add the sugar and pudding mix to the milk and stir it in with a whisk before heating it. Keep stirring over low heat until it has a creamy consistency. Transfer the pudding to a bowl and thoroughly mix in the sour cream. Spread the finished pudding cream evenly over the cooled cake base.
- For the apricot glaze, mix the apricot jam and water over low heat in a pan and stir in the gelatin. Spread the finished apricot glaze over the cooled pudding cream.
- Now comes the decorative part – we promised you bees didn't we? For this, lay the apricot halves flat side down on a work surface lined with parchment paper. Pour the melted dark chocolate into a disposable piping bag and cut the tip off, leaving as small a hole as possible so you can work with it precisely. Decorate the apricot halves with the melted chocolate by passing over each of them with the bag several times so they end up with brown stripes.Dip the back of a spoon in the melted dark chocolate and use it to place a small blob of chocolate either in front of or behind the stripes on each apricot, to help make the bees' faces. For the eyes, dip the blunt end of a skewer in the melted white chocolate and use it to make two white blobs on the upper half of the dark chocolate circles. Make sure they have set before you do this. For the final details for the eyes, dip the point of the skewer in the melted dark chocolate. When you carefully add tiny dots in the center of the white circles this will create pupils for the eyes. To finish this naturally-inspired artwork, make a small incision behind the first chocolate stripe behind the eyes and insert two sliced almonds for wings.
- Now you just have to arrange the decorated apricots on the apricot glaze and refrigerate the entire thing.
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Notes
Nothing quite says summer like the buzz of a bee, and if you're afraid of the sting, just remember, they'll only attack if they feel threatened. But to be on the safe side, maybe you should simply get on with making some like this — they're perfectly safe and wonderfully tasty, so why not bring a taste of spring into your kitchen?!