Bienenstich

December 14, 2013

We recently colluded with our friend Clamps to hold an evening of Krautrock and (vegan) Frankfurts. I can't let any event pass without dessert, and took this as an opportunity to make a German-style cake. Bienenstich, or bee sting cake, is a childhood favourite of mine. Though most of my forebears migrated from Germany, I've no particular memories of my mum, aunties or grandmothers baking a family recipe. We usually bought it from a local bakery and called it by its German name whether they labelled it so or not.

Bienenstich is traditionally a yeasted, not-so-sweet cake sliced into two layers, filled with a thick custard and topped with a golden brown crunchy almond toffee. Strangely the recipe I hand-copied from my mum more than a decade ago doesn't include yeast. Neither does the bee sting cake in Leigh Drew's Vegan Indulgence. The latter recipe skips the eggs and introduces orange juice to the custard, but otherwise the ingredient lists corresponded well so I decided to go with Drew's all-vegan version.

I really like that Drew incorporated almond meal into her cake batter - though I don't think it's traditional, it brings a certain sturdiness to the crumb and confirms almonds as the feature of the cake. The orange custard isn't much like the whipped-cream fillings I encountered as a kid but it succeeds by echoing the orange-and-almond meal pairing popular in gluten free baking. It takes a strong custard to hold up a cake layer and mine didn't quite cut it - I used about a third of my custard as filling, saw that any more would surely spill out onto the plate, and served the remainder on the side.

For all that custard and almond meal, this cake would be nothing without its almond toffee topping. It's spread over the cake during the last 10 minutes of baking, allowing time for the almonds to brown and the toffee to set hard. The toffee syrup also snuck down the sides of the cake, creating a gorgeous, sticky caramelised crust. The almond toffee was the true trigger for my sweet-toothed nostalgia, and this recipe's crackly topping was the stuff of Sunday morning teas with my extended family.

Bienenstich
(very slightly adapted from a recipe in
Leigh Drew's Vegan Indulgence)

cake
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup almond meal
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 cup soy milk

almond toffee
2 tablespoons margarine
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup soy milk
pinch of salt

custard
1/3 cup custard powder
1/2 cup orange juice
2 cups soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup agave nectar

Preheat an oven to 180°C.  Line a springform cake tin with paper.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and sugar. Stir in the almond meal.

In a second smaller bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, vanilla, vegetable oil and vinegar.

Pour the soy milk into the large bowl of dry ingredients and stir them together. Add the oil mixture and combine thoroughly, but don't mix more than you have to. Pour the cake batter into the lined cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.

At the 20 minute mark during baking, prepare the toffee. In a medium saucepan, melt together the margarine and sugar. Allow them to simmer for about 2 minutes, then stir in the soy milk. When the mixture is smooth, take it off the heat and stir in the almonds and salt.

When the cake hits 30 minutes in the oven, retrieve it and spread the top with two-thirds to three-quarters of the almond toffee - whatever it takes to get an even layer of almonds across the top. Return the cake to the oven for a further 10 minutes, until the almonds are golden brown and a skewer through the cake comes out clean. 

Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, and then completely on a bench or cake rack.

Make the custard in a large saucepan. Start by placing the custard powder in the saucepan and gradually stirring in orange juice to form a smooth paste. Continue adding orange juice and then soy milk gradually and mixing as you go to retain a smooth texture. Place the saucepan over low-medium heat and cook it, stirring continuously, until it's thickened, around 10 minutes. Remove the custard from the heat and whisk in the agave nectar. Chill the custard for at least 4 hours in the fridge.

When the cake and custard are cool and ready, carefully slice the cake horizontally. Spread the remaining almond toffee on the bottom half of the cake. Top it with the cold custard. You really need it to be a sturdy custard that can take the weight of the top cake - if in doubt, reserve some of the custard and serve it on the side of the cake. Gently place the top half of the cake over the custard-spread base. Chill the cake thoroughly before serving.

July 5, 2009: Crème brûlée

For many years, the words 'crème brûlée' just made me think of the daggy and wistful has-been (or rather, never-was) Les McQueen from the League of Gentlemen. But when I saw a novel rendition of this dessert in Leigh Drew's Vegan Indulgence and imagined serving it in still-warm ramekins, I put it on Sunday night's vegan winter menu. It was always going to be a high-risk venture, and I managed to make it extra difficult for myself.

Leigh gives directions for making about 2 cups of almond milk and supplements this with a further 2 cups of soy milk. Not being a big fan of soy milk, I thought I'd skip straight to buying a litre of almond milk and proceed from there. Only I couldn't find almond milk at the unfamiliar supermarket I was visiting. Instead I decided to buy rice milk, which has a natural sweetness that I thought could work here. Actually, once I'd made the custard and sampled the saucepan's leftovers, I didn't care for the aftertaste of the rice milk at all! While Michael protested that the rice custard was OK, I prepared myself for binning the lot and congratulated myself on purchasing some just-in-case vegan chocolate.

The recipe quantity allowed me to make one extra custard, so I rehearsed the sugar caramelising process on Sunday afternoon. In short, it was a mess. Brown, bubbly and gooey, my brûlée looked more like a swamp sample than anything you'd want to eat. But I developed a new theory or two during the process, and I reminded myself that this night's guests were the kind to appreciate an experiment and forgive a disaster dessert... especially if I could follow it up with chocolate.

And what do you know? I totally pulled these off! The key seems to be the shortest, hottest caramelisation process you can manage - heat up the grill completely before putting these in, pull them out as soon as they brown, and give them a good 5-10 minutes for the sugar to harden. Cross your fingers and it just might end up being the dish that everyone's still talking about days later.

I got so worked up about the custard flavour and toffee texture that I forgot to fret about using agar agar - thankfully it worked a treat, producing a smooth set custard that wasn't rubbery. I'm a little curious about Leigh's use of both cornflour and custard powder - custard powder is little more than cornflour and sugar, so I'd be tempted to sub it out for its main constituents if I made this again. (On the other hand, I now have most of a box of custard powder to use up...)

Les' nostalgia trips have been overtaken. Now the words 'crème brûlée' will have me thinking: problematic, possible and still to be perfected.


Crème brûlée
(adapted from a recipe in Vegan Indulgence by Leigh Drew)

1L rice milk (or almond milk, preferably!)
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
3 tablespoons agave nectar
1 tablespoon agar agar
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 tablespoon custard powder
3 tablespoons water
7-10 teaspoons sugar

In a medium saucepan, stir together the milk, vanilla and agave. Sprinkle over the agar agar and set the mixture aside for 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix together the cornflour, custard powder and water until the powders are dissolved.

Put the saucepan of milk over medium heat and bring it to the boil. Once it's boiling, whisk it thoroughly for a couple of minutes. Whisk in the cornflour mixture and allow it all to simmer for half a minute. Remove the custard from the heat and continue whisking it for a few more minutes as it thickens.

Pour the custard into ramekins, leave them to cool at room temperature for half an hour, then cover them with foil and store them in the fridge for 24 hours.

When you're ready to serve dessert, heat up a griller as hot as you can. Sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over each ramekin of custard and put them under the grill, a few at a time. Heat them until the sugar melts and remove them as soon as the sugar has browned. Allow the custard to cool and the toffee to harden before serving.