27*52 Bienenstich (Bee's Sting)

Bee's Sting.

Doesn't sound like something you would want in your mouth?

In general, I would agree. But not when it comes to this traditional German cake.

It is my mom's birthday tomorrow and - surprisingly - she has been telling me that she would like this cake for a while now. Surprisingly so because she does neither like whipped cream nor (vanilla) pudding but both are in the filling.

Oh well - it's her birthday so her wish is my command :)

Bienenstich (Bee's Sting)

Adapted from Chefkoch.de  

Dough:

500 g flour

100 g sugar

1 cube (42 g) fresh yeast

250 ml milk, warm

1 egg

50 g butter, soft

pintch of salt

Filling:

2 sachets powder for vanilla pudding

750 ml milk

100 g sugar

1 egg yolk

200 g heavy cream

Topping:

100 g heavy cream

50 g butter

2 tablespoons honey

100 g sugar

200 g almonds, sliced

• Crumble yeast into flour, add 1 teaspoon sugar and a bit of milk and stir. Cover and let rest in a warm spot for 5 minutes until bubbles appear.
• Cook pudding with milk and sugar according to the directions on the package. Let cool a bit, stir in egg yolk. Let cool completely, stir occassionally.
• Knead yeast-flour-mix with the remaining sugar and milk, egg, butter, and salt. Let rise for 30 minutes.
• For the topping, bring cream, butter, honey, and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat, let cool a bit and stir in almonds.
• Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F). For a lower cake, roll out dough onto a baking sheet. For a higher and round cake, put dough into a springform pan. Spread almond mix onto it, let rise for another 10 minutes. Bake for 20 minutes (or up to 30 minutes if you bake it in a springform pan). Let cool completely.
• Cut cake into half lenghtwise, take off the top part and set aside. Whip cream and add to the pudding. Spread cream onto the bottom cake. Cut the top into desired amount of slices before putting them back onto the cream filling to make cutting easier.

My modifications:

None. I baked it in a springform pan and got a very, very high cake. I cut out a bit in the middle to make it more manageable for eating.

The taste:

I'm not the biggest fan (never was) but it was good. The topping is the best part, if you ask me. The filling was yummy but started to liquify pretty quickly after taking it out of the fridge (as you can see below).

Maybe next time I would make a sheet of this cake with lots of the topping and no filling. Could be pretty good and more practical for summer.

What have you baked for somebody's birthday because they wished for it?