Just Desserts

Our afternoon beekeeping taster sessions incorporate a short break for tea and cake, which seems to go down so well that I have decided to share the recipes here (I serve either the cake shown in the picture above, or small beehive cakes). The cake in the picture is a Honey Lemon Cake made in a Nordicware Honeycomb Pull Apart Cake Pan - yes, it's American...The tin can be bought on Amazon or from Lakeland, which seems to be cheaper than going to Nordicware direct - or you can just use a large cake tin of your own! The beehive tins are also from Nordicware, but you can use bun trays with silicone or paper cases.

Honey Lemon Pull Apart Cake
Ingredients:
375g self-raising flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
0.25 tsp salt
250g softened butter
300g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tbsp finely grated lemon rind
190g sour cream or natural yogurt

Glaze:
3 tbsp honey
50g icing sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

Method: Heat the oven to 175c, and grease and flour the cake tin. In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl beat the sugar and butter together until blended then beat the eggs and add these, mix well. Add the flour mixture, sour cream/yogurt and lemon rind and mix well. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the tin and then turn out onto a cooling rack. Meanwhile, make the glaze - combine all the ingredients in a small pan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves and the glaze is warm. Brush the cake with the honey glaze.


Honey Beehive Cakes
Ingredients
125g polenta or cornmeal (maize flour)
125g plain flour
0.5 tbsp baking powder
85g sugar
0.5 tsp salt
120g milk
2 small eggs
2 tbsp melted butter
25g honey

Glaze:
25g icing sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp honey

Method: Heat the oven to 180c. Grease and flour the beehive moulds or put paper/silicone cases in 12 bun tray.
In a medium bowl mix all the cake ingredients together. Pour the resulting batter into the moulds or cases and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean. Allow to cool and turn out onto a plate. For the glaze, warm the ingredients together in a small pan until the sugar dissolves, then brush over the cakes.

Bon appetit!