Recipe: Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake) Disney Copycat Recipe

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon yeast
2 tablespoon butter
2 each eggs
6-8 tablespoon milk

Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 cup almonds

Filling:
3 each instant vanilla pudding mix (3 1/8 ounce box)
4 cups milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
**This made about twice as much filling for my cake as needed. I suggest halfing the recipe and then making more as needed.

Honey and Sugar Mixture:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1/4 cup honey

Directions:

Cake:
Sift together the flours, salt and sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time until incorporated.
Then add the butter until mixed into flour mixture.
Heat milk until it is warm to touch. Add yeast to milk and dissolve.
In a mixing bowl, add the warm milk and yeast mixture to the flour until the dough pulls away from the sides but sticks to the bottom of the bowl.
Place on a floured surface and roll into a 10 inch circle to the thickness of 1/4 inch. Then place in a greased 10-inch cake pan.
Pre-heat oven to 350°.
Let sit in a warm place covered until the dough doubles in size.
Place topping mixture on top of proofed cake and bake in a 350° for 20-25 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
Let cool on wire racks. Once cooled, slice in half lengthwise using a serrated knife.
Brush both sides with the honey and sugar mixture.
Line a 10 inch cake pan with plastic wrap so it over hangs on the sides.
Place the bottom of cake in the pan. Spread the pudding and whipped cream mixture on the bottom of the cake. Then place the top portion of the cake on the pudding mixture.
Place in the refrigerator until cake sets.
Remove from pan carefully from by pulling the plastic wrap. Serve.

Baked, ready for filling.

Topping:
Warm milk. Add the sugar and mix until well dissolved.
Remove from heat and cool. Mix in the almonds.
This will be used as a topping for the cake.

Topping on and ready to bake.

Filling:
Add the pudding mix to the 4 cups of milk in a bowl.
Beat with a wire whisk or electric mixer at low speed for 2 minutes.
In a separate bowl whip the heavy cream until it forms soft peaks.
Fold the heavy cream into the pudding mixture until well incorporated.

Honey and Sugar Mixture:
Mix together the ingredients. Heat until sugar dissolves. Cool at room temperature.

Walt Disney's Pinocchio [Themed Dinner]

I originally posted this on my personal blog (Reitter's Block) on November 17, 2012 as part of my "Tasteful Countdown" project counting down to the family trip to Walt Disney World in October of 2013. This is the project that gave me the idea to create this blog. And then life got in the way... so I am starting it up again in the New Year.
We are back on track with the Tasteful Countdown for our 2013 Disney trip. This week's movie was Pinocchio. It's not one of my favorites, but it has the song that became Disney's "theme", so it is a must watch. I found out that dad's favorite Disney character growing up with Jiminy Cricket, so that also made it special! We're learning more about each other as a family as we go through this.

The menu was themed around Northern Italy as that is the area that Pinocchio is supposed to take place (who knew?! I always thought he was German! LOL). It was difficult to find something that was Northern Italian that wasn't really *out there* or expensive, or that anyone would eat. I finally found a website that linked recipes by region and away we went.

Dad helped with the menu, I'm trying to keep him excited about this adventure, and so we settled on a main dish of Chicken with a Fire roasted red pepper red sauce over fettucine, and the dessert was a Peach tart with a Cocoa-Almond crust (the best part of that being it was gluten free so mom could have it). I couldn't figure out a good side dish, but my friends at Golden Skate Forums helped me out and suggested Polenta. DorisPulaski gave me a good recipe for a creamy polenta so my menu was all set.

Thursday rolled around and I felt all set - until we realized we never went and got the ingredients. So mom made a quick trip to the store in between her Bible Study and PCC duties, and called me to let me know I'd have to get the stuff out of her car on my way home from the office. No problem, a quick drive over and I had the stuff and was on my way home. That's when I noticed that I was missing some key ingredients - mainly the roasted red peppers!



The peach tart's directions were scary,
but it was successful!

So I sat around hoping I'd just missed a bag in mom's car. No such luck, instead of roasted red peppers she'd bought roasted tomatos! Whoops! So as I started on the dessert mom hurried over to the store and got the missing peppers. The tart had me very nervous because I had to make a syrup with the peaches and I was so scared that I would burn the sugar (I didn't!). When I chose this dish, I just read the ingredients and not the instructions. There's a lot to this little tart! I didn't have all of the tools I needed, but I made do.

With the tart baking in the oven, I started on the main dish. It was easy peasy and I realized the sauce was going to be finished before the rest of the meal! Oh no! I took it off the heat and made the polenta. I was worried I would do it wrong, and so I think I cooked it a bit longer than what I should have, but how was I to know?! While I finished up the polenta I boiled the pasta, and finished the sauce. Unfortunately this meant the polenta was cold by the time it was ready to dish up. I guess I still need to work on my timing!

Main dish was awesome!

The chicken also had me worried, as I didn't want to cook it wrong. Mom "taught" me by doing it herself. She said I watched so I would be able to do it next time... okay, mom, whatever you say! Once everything was done I dished up the plates, sliced up the chicken breasts and served my family. Duane was at youth group, so he was dining on Pizza while we had our own Italian meal. He was fine with missing out - except that he wanted dessert! Mom and Dad loved everything on the menu, but I found I am not a fan of polenta, so mom was happy because that means she's gotten to have left over polenta for days!

We also decided that the next time we make the main dish that we'd make a double batch - we needed more sauce! The sauce was super yummy - and I'm not normally a fan of peppers, but this was really good! I definitely ate all of that on my plate, but I was full from lunch (I ate late, my bad!) so I didn't eat all the chicken and I skipped the polenta.

The tart was so good dad ate half of it!

Dessert was served about half way through the movie, and Duane was back from youth group, so he had nothing to worry about. I am not a fan of peaches at all, so I didn't try a piece, but judging by the reactions of my family they all loved it. I served it with ice cream and the extra peach syrup and they gobbled it up!

Because it was an almond crust, I used almond flour instead of the all purpose the recipe called for - so mom could have it. From what I could tell it didn't do anything to negatively affect the dish - though the dough was a little wetter than it called for. We also had to use frozen peaches, so the syrup was runny and we had more of it, which made the middle of the tart to be very soft, but everything was cooked through. Dad ate the last piece of it the same night, so obviously it was a win!

If you have any vegetarian ideas please share them with me by commenting on this post! I need all the help I can get!

Links to recipes from this week meal:
Chicken Fettuccine with roasted red pepper sauce
DorisPulaski's Creamy Polenta
Peach Tart with Almond-Cocoa Crust