One of the perks of our job is that when either one of our birthdays makes its way around we end up creating a hell of a cake for ourselves! This Honey, Vanilla and Lavender Beehive Macaron Cake is by no means an exception. To celebrate Krystle’s (the Welsh half of Juniper Cakery) 28th birthday we set to work designing, baking and decorating this impressive beehive inspired macaron tower.
The cake itself is vanilla filled and iced with a wildflower honey buttercream whilst the macarons that adorn it are honey, vanilla and lavender flavoured. The bottom tier is covered with gold painted fondant ‘sequins’.
Being Welsh, an outdoors-y woman and harbouring a life-long fascination with bees this was an obvious cake for Krystle. We took inspiration from beehives, botanical illustrations, anything and everything golden and glamorous and full bouquets of seasonal blossoms to design this cake.
After affixing the honey, vanilla and lavender macarons to the cake tower we embellished them with handmade ivory sugar gum paste roses and leaves, gold painted fondant bees and soft lavender hydrangea blossoms.
The ‘sequin’ tier took an excruciating amount of work and time to create! For a while we kept spotting fondant sequin cakes doing the rounds on various blogs and online magazines from across the pond and we had been itching to re-create this! It took the both of us over 10 hours to make!
The cake board was fun to decorate too! The large hexagon shaped board was covered with a cream fondant then embossed with a honeycomb pattern, brushed with gold lustre dust and dotted with gold painted fondant bees!
The top of the macaron cake tower was finished with a gum paste finial that was then hand painted gold. The design was influenced by pollen, floral petals, the abdomen of a honey bee and by the finials that perch atop historical buildings.
We added a little bit of fun by attaching some gold painted fondant bees onto a few blossoms as well as clustered onto the macarons.
This cake took so much time and effort to create, but it was worth it! This cake is the perfect combination of both of our personal styles. It incorporates our love of nature, food (of course!) and even architecture.
These honey whiskey cupcakes are the perfect boozy treat exclusively for grown ups! They’re a little more rustic than the trend for cocktail infused cupcakes and the rich, deep flavour of the honey adds a great sweetness to the buttercream. By adding bourbon vanilla pod seeds in your buttercream with a splash (or several) of Tennessee honey whiskey you’ll get a lovely creamy taste too. Follow our recipe below for some indulgent treats!
Vanilla Cupcake Recipe (makes approximately 12 cupcakes)
Step one: Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 3/325F/170C
Step two: Cream the butter with the sugar and once well mixed add the eggs then gradually add the flour and seeds from your vanilla pod.
Step three: Set out your cupcake cases in your pan and fill each case 2/3 full.
Step four: Bake from around 12-18 minutes and leave to cool on a counter. TIP: To stop the tops of cakes and cupcakes from hardening when cooling place slices of bread on top of them as they cool.
Step three: Fit a piping bag with a 808 piping tip (to get a lovely smooth-look buttercream like our cupcake). Fill your piping bag with your buttercream.
Step four: Pipe some generous swirls atop your cupcakes. We pipe our cupcakes from the centre and around whilst cutting in on top.
Rhubarb, Honey & Vanilla Cake in Partnership with The Happy Egg Co.
Welcome to our third cake, recipe and cake decorating tutorial in partnership with The Happy Egg Co.! In our development post we blogged about creating a traditional cake which would fit right in at picnics or at summer fetes. To recreate that sense of tradition we chose a layer cake filled with our rhubarb and honey curd decorating it with lashings of vanilla pod infused buttercream. To add a textured, homemade finish we ensured the buttercream was rugged and imperfect by spreading it on in layers resulting in a fun, quick and easy cake. After the following images you’ll find the recipe and a tutorial on how to make this cake and the decorative bunting. Why not try it for yourself?
Cake and buttercream recipe
To create this cake (a 9 inch circle) you will need the following…
7-8 free range eggs by The Happy Egg Co. depending on egg size
453g self raising flour
453g caster sugar
453g butter
For the buttercream you will need…
453g butter (don’t use margarine as the water content is higher and not suitable for buttercream)
453g - 553g icing sugar (choose your own consistency and taste)
3 vanilla pods
Rhubarb, honey and vanilla curd recipe
400g rhubarb cut into pieces
60g granulated sugar
60g butter
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoons of honey
2 vanilla pods
Airtight jar
To make the cake cream your butter in a mixer then add the caster sugar. Add in the flour along with half of the happy eggs for around one minute. Once half of the happy eggs are combined add the remaining and mix for about 5 minutes.
Pour each colour into separate greased cake pans and place on the top shelf of a pre-heated oven at Gas Mark 3/325F/170C. Bake for around 30 minutes.
Leave to cool and in the meantime prepare your buttercream.
For the buttercream add half of the 1lb of butter diced into pieces. Cream the butter in a mixer. Then gradually add icing sugar and the remaining butter (cut into cubes). Once the buttercream is of a smooth consistency add some the inside of your vanilla pods and mix well.
Now to make the rhubarb, honey and vanilla curd filling! Boil all 400g of rhubarb in a saucepan of water stirring every so often with a wooden spoon. When the rhubarb is ‘mushy’ pour into a colander to remove the water. Lower the heat on the stove to half of what you used to get to boiling point. Pour the rhubarb back into the pan and add the sugar. Stir gently until the sugar is dissolved then add the two tablespoons of honey. Stir again until well mixed then add the insides of your two vanilla pods. Now add the butter and stir until melted.
In a separate bowl beat your egg yolks well. Pour these slowly into your rhubarb mix and keep stirring the yolks in gently. Keep mixing and checking the curd by scooping the back of your wooden spoon into the curd; when the curd coats the back of your spoon thickly then it is ready to pour into a jar and set.
Buttercream technique
The great thing about working with buttercream is that it is easy to change, sculpt and even scrap off and start again. Another selling point to butercream icing your cakes is that it doesn’t matter if it is perfect; buttercream is messy and evokes a rustic charm. The fact that buttercream creates a lovely homemade look is perfect for this cake inspired by traditional flavours!
A very simple and effective buttercream technique to use is to create a pinwheel look on the top of your frosted cake. Once you’ve iced your cake smoothly take a small spatula and using only its tip begin in the centre of the top of your cake. You want to quickly (and not too heavily) drag the end of your spatula from the centre to the edge of your cake. Keep doing this around the cake and you should be left with the below effect! Once finished the edges will just need a quick tidy with your spatula.
How to make the edible bunting
To make your edible sugarpaste bunting you will need…
Step one: Dust the surface with icing sugar and begin to roll out your chosen fondant. Cut it into an oblong shape and put any excess sugarpaste to one side. The size and length of the oblong will depend on how large you would like your bunting to be.
Step two: With a knife or pizza cutter begin cutting out triangular shapes at your required size. See the images for the technique we used and repeat with all of your fondant using your first piece of bunting as a template.
Step three: Now you have your bunting use the quilting tool to add traditional stitching detail to your bunting.
Step four: If the buttercream on your cake is still soft simply stick the pieces of bunting in place.
Not only is Easter just around the corner, but also March 31st sees the seasons change from winter to spring. With this in mind our third cake in partnership with The Happy Egg Co. will incorporate some key springtime flavours, colours and styles.
The first thing we gathered ideas and inspiration for was the all-important flavour. We sat and discussed the typical spring tastes of chocolate combined with floral hints (lavender, violet and rose). Whilst these elegant and delicious flavours would work beautifully in a cake we decided that the Easter and spring festivities would no doubt see an inundation of these scents and tastes. Our attention then turned towards flavours that were associated with home cooking and baking; apple and rhubarb crumbles, custard smothered trifles, traditional Victoria sponge, and moist sticky toffee puddings. From the above ideas we settled upon a rhubarb, honey and custard filled Victoria sponge-style cake.
With Easter being such a chocolate fuelled holiday we were happy to have settled on rhubarb, honey and custard as our flavour. Being inspired by fresh seasonal vegetables and traditional deserts we looked to other spring and summer time holidays and traditions. We envisioned balmy summer evenings, extravagant picnics and country fetes in which the idea of our cake fit perfectly. Though May is not quite here the image of the May Pole, and other transitional celebrations, spurred us to think about textures and materials and how we could use them when we decorated the actual cake.
While taking the photographs for our design boards we looked at spring and summer colour schemes and fresh rhubarb stalks. The vibrant, natural hue of the rhubarb and the idea of May Pole ribbons and energetic colour evolved into looking at buntings and stitching techniques and how we might translate these onto the finished cake!
