BUZZ!!! - Lemon Beehive Cake

I heard the buzz about that Jerry Seinfeld movie, but I never actually saw it. I was, however, quite captivated by the Honey-Glazed-Beehive Cake that recently graced the cover of a national magazine. Something about it just said summertime.

One of my oldest possessions is a venerable edition of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne. In the opening pages, Pooh is out walking in the 100 Aker Wood and hears a loud buzzing-noise. Pooh says to himself:

“That buzzing-noise means something. You don’t get a buzzing noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without it meaning something. If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee.”

Winnie-the-Pooh’s craving for honey is a literary legend.

After staring at the magazine cover for some time, I now have a bee in my bonnet. So I track down a special cake pan in the shape of a hive and get busy. The recipe in the magazine seems complicated enough to require a colony of bees to get it done, so I opt instead for a slightly simpler recipe.

While baking, my mind is humming with bee imagery, from the villainous Queen Bee who stung the Justice League of America, to music lyrics, to the comic antics of John Belushi’s King Bee on Saturday Night Live.

I am quite industrious and soon, my beehive is glazed with flowery golden honey from Vermont and swarming with marzipan bees.

There is a serious note to my musings. The worldwide honeybee population is in dramatic decline, perhaps impacting the pollination of one third of our food supply. Various organizations are seeking ways to help the honeybees.

I honestly don’t mean to drone on, and in fact, I really should buzz along. To paraphrase Winne-the-Pooh, “the only reason for making Lemon Beehive Cake with Honey Glaze is so I can eat it.”

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved