It's a rather dull afternoon in the UK. It has been raining all day today, with some sunny spells shining through. Now I know what you are thinking, it's the UK, it always rains. Here is where you are wrong. It has been absolutely beautiful the past week. Sunny skies. No clouds. I have been sunbathing every day for at least an hour and obviously managed to burn myself.
Today though it is dull and dark. What better day for a bake?! The "Bee" cake or "prajitura Albinita" as it's called in Romania, is one of my favourite layered cakes. I have a number of favourite cakes and I always try to replicate them at home as I can't go back to Romania every time I fancy a slice of my favourite cakes.
Both my brother and I went to university in a neighbouring city to ours called Timisoara. When I was younger, whenever we went to see my brother or just to visit the city, we stopped in the city centre and went to a patisserie there.
I do not know how I ended up ordering that particular cake, or perhaps my mom ordered for me as I was very young, but it soon became my favourite. Whenever we went to the patisserie, I would get the "Bee" cake.
It's called the "Bee" cake as the dough is made with honey. It is a layered cake, with a semolina based cream and usually a rosehip jam in the middle. Because it's so sweet, the jam used is usually a bit tart. I can't always find rosehip jam so I use apricot jam instead.
I must admit I do not make the cake very often. Mainly because the dough is very difficult to work with, having so much honey and sugar in it. I did make it once for Christmas after I left my husband, and my housemate loved it. Now on his birthday if I ask him what cake he wants me to bake him, he always asks for the "Bee" cake. He is even happy to wait for 24h for the cake to go soft.
If you never made anything with honey in it, for the cake to be edible, you need to leave it for 24h to go soft. I usually sprinkle it with powdered sugar and cut it into long strips. I would like to say it lasts for a long time because it is a rather large cake, but it only lasts about 3 days in our household.
So, without further ado, here is the "Bee" cake.
The finished product should look something like this:
Comentarios