Honey Beehive

I've made this cake several times before, but my favourite way to present it is using my 'Nordic bakeware' beehive tin - what could be more appropriate for a Devonshire Honey cake?!

A friend asked if I could make one of these for her daughters 1st Birthday as she was having a 'Teddy Bears Pinic' theme for her party.

This is the recipe that I use -

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1840/devonshire-honey-cake

Using this particular tin I have to double the quantities, and baking tends to take about 90 minutes.

Once the cake has cooled slightly, I brush with more clear honey to keep the outside from getting dry and giving the cake a bit of a glossy finish. Despite appearances, the cooled cake does need quite a bit of trimming in order to get the 2 halves to sit neatly on the cake board giving you the 3D beehive.

You can make a honey glaze using 55g of icing sugar, 1tbsp honey and a little hot water, but I used lemon juice and icing sugar to create a drizzle instead - to give a bit of a contrast in taste, and after all, honey and lemon are always quite a good combination!

For this particular cake, my friend wanted the drizzle to be pink and made a special request for pink bumble bees, just to give it a more girly twist!

Now I must be honest, when I've made this cake in the past, I've used ready made bee decorations - for obvious reason I needed to make the pink ones myself, not half bad even though I do say so myself!!!

Here's the finished article, complete with the birthday girls name spelt out on sugar paste leaves to carry on the party theme....

My friend was very pleased with the cake, and it went down really well at the birthday party, which is always nice to hear!

Got a busy week ahead as I'm making my cousins wedding cake for next Saturday, as well as another couple of birthday cakes, I'll make sure I add as many posts as I can!

Lots of love and cupcakes

Laura xx