Oh the mysterious Bee Sting Cake. Sweet German honey cake, topped with sweet sliced almonds, and a layer of creamy pudding in the middle. Jenny and I had the cake one night at Suppenkuche in San Francisco's Hayes Valley. It was a friend's birthday and we celebrated with Bangers 'n Mash, sauerkraut, huge steins of beer, and lastly Bee Sting Cake. Maybe the beer helped, but the cake put a spell on us. We were drooling and giggling over every bite. A few times we asked for it again when eating there but it wasn't on the menu. I asked where they got it and it was from a Russian Bakery in the Richmond. I never found the bakery, but must have had the name or address wrong, for now we have a new lead.
Because this cake was so damn good, it lingered in our minds and would come up now and again, and ultimately inspired the name of our blog. We decided that we would make one as a tribute to the publishing of Bee Sting Cake (we have been talking about doing this for years.) Easy right? Not so much. It is a fairly long and complex recipe. But we figured with the three of us, and the master egg cracker Alabama, age 4, we could manage. I chose a recipe that seemed authentic and easy enough to follow. Make the cake, make the filling, put it all together and viola!
Well, it wasn't that difficult to make, but the recipe we used called for way too much yeast, and the cake ended up way too heavy and musty. The pudding filling was pretty good, but could have been lighter. Gelatin smells like hooves.
So ultimately we called our first attempt a failure, and despite how good the picture looks, I won't share the recipe with you because it should never be attempted again.
The mission: Find the perfect Bee Sting Cake recipe. There are quite a few online, with all kinds of variations. I may scour the library for a German cookbook, see if I can find an authentic one. So darling reader, stay tuned for our next Bienenstich Bake Off. We will keep trying until we have mastered the elusive and lovely Bee Sting Cake.
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