Honey, Vanilla & Lavender Beehive Macaron Cake!

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. 

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

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’.

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

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.

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

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.

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

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!

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

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.

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

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.

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper CakeryBeehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

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.

Beehive Macaron Cake by Juniper Cakery

 

Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate Cake with The Happy Egg Co.

Fresh blueberries and fragrant lavender are two of the best things about summer, plus they are wonderful flavours to add to various cake recipes too. With that in mind we whipped up a delicious Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate cake using eggs from The Happy Egg Co. This cake is perfect for a fruity summertime treat; why not try out our recipe for barbecues, garden parties or afternoon tea.

Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate Cake

Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate Cake Recipe

(makes three 8″ layers)

7-8 eggs by The Happy Egg Co.
453g self-raising flour
453g butter
453g caster sugar
1 heaped teaspoon of edible lavender florets

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. Add 1 heaped teaspoon of edible lavender florets and mix.

Pour into a greased circle cake pan until 2/3 full and place on the top shelf of a pre-heated oven at Gas Mark 3/325F/170C. Bake for around 30 minutes. Repeat this step three times for each circle layer.

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Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate Cake

Blueberry and Lavender Preserve Recipe

200g of blueberries
2 tablespoons of edible lavender florets
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
250g jam sugar
6 tablespoons of room temperature water

Add all ingredients into a saucepan on medium to high heat. Bring to boil whilst stirring constantly. 

Leave to simmer and keep stirring. When the liquid has reduced to 50% less check if the preserve is ready. To do this turn off the heat and scoop out a tablespoon’s worth before leaving in the sample in a refrigerator for 2 minutes. Test when ready by pushing the jam with your finger. Is the jam moves and forms a wrinkled skin along the top then it is ready. Otherwise, turn on the heat and leave the preserve to simmer a little longer.

Once ready pour into clean jars to cool before using.

White Chocolate Buttercream

150g white chocolate buttons
350g butter
250-350g icing sugar

Step one: Cut up your butter into small cubes. We use a serrated knife to do this as the serrated edge causes less suction than a straight edge one. This means you shouldn’t be fighting desperately with getting the butter off your knife; a hazardous thing to do at best!

Step two: In a stand up mixer cream your butter using the flat beater on medium speed.

Step three: As the butter is creaming add in the icing sugar a bit at a time.

Step four: In a glass bowl melt up your chocolate callets in either a bain marie (the bowl in a saucepan of hot water) or a microwave (check and stir every 30 seconds to avoid burning).

Step five: Remove from heat once melted and stir until the chocolate has half cooled. Pour your melted chocolate into your mixer bowl with the buttercream and mix.

Step six: Mix your frosting at full speed at 30 second intervals; checking each time.

Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate Cake

Decorating this cake is relatively easy. You just need all your ingredients, some time, patience, extra blueberries, extra edible lavender florets, a good turntable and a small spatula.

Sandwich your layers with your fruity blueberry buttercream on your turntable before covering your cake with your white chocolate frosting. Using a small spatula add the white chocolate buttercream onto your cake until it is completely covered and smoothed.

To create the linear texture in the buttercream that we created begin from the bottom of your cake and angle the tip of your spatula into the frosting slightly. As you turn your turntable keep your spatula steady and move slightly up the cake so you are left with a linear spiral working it’s way up through the buttercream!

Finally, sprinkle with edible lavender florets and topple generously with fresh blueberries! Now your Blueberry, Lavender and White Chocolate cake is ready to be enjoyed!

 

The Happy Egg Co Cake - Blueberry Season

As fresh blueberries ripen in the Juniper Cakery HQ garden what better way to enjoy the month of July than by including them in this month’s happy egg recipe! Everywhere you go you’ll see blueberries in drinks, yogurts, desserts and maybe even in your own garden too.

Blueberry Cake by Juniper Cakery

The tart taste of blueberry is perfect for a summer-themed cake recipe but the freshness they bring also makes them subtle enough to be paired with another flavour. The scent of fresh plants, trees and flowers have become a frequent enjoyment here at Juniper Cakery now that the warm, balmy weather is finally here; the most prominent of all being lavender!

Lavender and Blueberry by Juniper Cakery

Lavender would bring subtle tones of floral flavour to an otherwise all fruit recipe so our minds were soon made up; this month’s happy egg co. cake will be a white layer cake with blueberries and lavender baked in and filled with lashings of white chocolate buttercream! The natural, deep tones included in this month’s colour pallet are inspired by the blue and purple hues taken from the blueberries and lavender themselves.

Blueberry and Lavender by Juniper Cakery

 

Recipe: Lemon and Lavender Cupcakes

Lemon and Lavender cupcakes by Juniper Cakery

On Wednesday we created our delicious Lemon & Lavender cupcakes.  We whipped up a batch of vanilla cupcakes, piped them with two-toned swirls of buttercream and adorned them with all natural lavender florets. The light, fragrant flavour of the lavender combined with a subtle zing of lemon encouraged us to think further about fruity and floral flavours perfect for the summer months.

Lemon and Lavender cupcakes by Juniper Cakery

The florets are a great form of decoration, especially in spring and summer, and prove to be the perfect way to bring the outside in! The soft bursts of fresh lavender are a fantastic addition to the creamy texture of the lemon & and lavender buttercream.

Lemon and Lavender cupcakes by Juniper Cakery

Makes approximately 12 cupcakes

For the cupcakes…

226g self raising flour
226g butter
226g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 Bourbon Vanilla Pod 

Step one: Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 3/325F/170C

Step two: Cream the butter with sugar, flour and then the eggs. Add the tiny flecks inside the Bourbon Vanilla Pod and mix well.

Step three: Set out twelve cupcake cases in your pan and fill each case 2/3 full.

Step four: Bake from around 12-18 minutes or until a golden brown on top and leave to cool on a counter.

For the buttercream…

We make our buttercream using our own intuition. We’ve tried countless recipes; all of which failed to pass our test (and stability) tests. It’s best that you begin to develop and ‘eye’, ‘feel’ and ‘taste’ so that you know when your frosting is perfect for you. For starters though, the recipe below is a rough guide…

250g butter
250-350g icing sugar
1-2 teaspoons of Lavender Extract
1-2 teaspoons of Lemon Extract
Yellow Food Gel Colour Paste
Lilac Food Gel Colour Paste
855 piping tip/nozzle
Piping bags
Lavender Florets

Step one: Cut your butter into small cubes and cream your butter until soft. Gradually add icing sugar until a good consistency.

Step two: Separate your buttercream into two halves. Add some Lemon Extract with Yellow Food Gel Colour Paste to one half. To the other add Lavender Extract with some Lilac Food Gel Colour Pastee.

Step three: To get a fun two toned/dual flavoured effect scoop your lavender buttercream down one half of a piping bag fitted with an 855 piping tip/nozzle (this tip/nozzle creates lovely ruffled buttercream). After doing so the other half of your bag should be free for you to add your lemon buttercream.

Step four: Now you can pipe lots of generous and tasty swirls of buttercream on top of your cupcakes! Finish with a sprinkle of fragrant Lavender Florets and they’re ready to enjoy!

Lemon and Lavender cupcakes by Juniper Cakery

Lemon and Lavender cupcakes by Juniper Cakery

 

 

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