Bee-Happy Cupcakes

Make these awesome cupcakes for any occasion or to wow your friends at your next BBQ.  Black jellybeans were used to make the bees and local honey was poured in the middle of each cupcake for an extra surprise.

Enjoy!







Recipe adapted from What's New Cupcake by Karen Tack

13 Vanilla cupcakes baked in yellow cupcake liners

2 jars of yellow decorating sugar (cake mate)

1 store bought sugar cookie dough

3 tbl  light corn syrup

1 can (16 oz) vanilla frosting

Yellow and Black food coloring

12 large  black jelly beans

1/4 cup sliced almonds

3/4 cup honey (optional)

Hexagon cookie cutters

Preheat oven to 350  Use a silpat or line a cookie sheet with parchment paper

Roll out dough. Cut the rolled dough into honeycomb shapes and scrape out middle using a paring knife.  Place dough in freezer for 5 min if it gets to soft. Bake the cookies until firm to the tough and lightly golden, around 10 min.

Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Place yellow sugar on a plate. Microwave corn syrup until boiling. 5 to 30sec. Brush top of cookie with corn syrup and dip into yellow sugar to coat. Cookies can be made up to two days in advance and kept in an airtight container. 

Frost cupcakes until smooth. Tint 1/4 cup frosting yellow and 1/4 cup frosting black.

Place the cookies on top of the cupcakes, sugared side up. Press into frosting to seal any gaps. Arrange 5 cupcakes on platter in a center row. Then place four cupcakes in a row on each side to create honeycomb effect. Level cookies so they touch at the sides and check for gaps between cookies and frosting.

Make the bees

Put yellow and black frosting into ziplock bags and tin snip small hole in corner.  Pipe 12 random black dots over cookies. Attach jellybeans to dots. Pipe a zigzag line of yellow frosting on top of jellybeans. Add 2 sliced almonds as wings. Pipe a black dot of frosting for the head and a small pulled dot for stinger. 

Just before serving, spoon 2 to 3 teaspoons of honey into center of each honeycomb.