Beehive Cake

I'm working on a post about my wonderful brother's wonderful wedding this weekend.  But there is a lot to say and I need more time to think about it.

In the meantime, let me tell you about the cake we made for the event.  My brother is an entomologist, and wasn't interested in a traditional wedding cake.  But my mom is an incredible cook and my kids and I like to decorate desserts, so we decided to team up on the cake for my brother's big day.  We weren't entirely sure how much cake we'd need, so I thought it made sense to create a cake and supplement with cupcakes.

For a guy who does research on bees it sounded fun to make a beehive as the main cake, and put bees and flowers on cupcakes surrounding it.  My mom even made alternating layers of chocolate and yellow cake so the inside of the cake would be striped like a bee.

My mom baked cakes in different sized round pans, and for the top we used half of a special baking tin I have for making a giant cupcake.  Unfortunately, the dog got to two of the layers while they were cooling on the kitchen table and mom had to bake two more.  (I'm not entirely sure Chipper has gotten back into mom's good graces yet.)


We used a basic butter cream frosting to hold it together and for the crumb coat.  The cake sat in the fridge overnight to let that first layer of frosting harden up a bit, and the next morning we made some yellow frosting to finish it off.




My kids, niece, brother, and dad all helped make decorations out of sugar paper and piping gel.  Some of the bees they made for the tops of cupcakes were just adorable.  Aden did a good job piping flowers.  And my brother made a show-stopper of an edible fancy bee for the front of the cake.

Aden cutting yellow sugar paper to make bees

Mom and me!

The whole thing worked out really well.  It was nice to be able to collaborate with my family on such a delicious project!

Bride and groom cutting cake