Covered in beeeeeeeees
Today, I made bees out of marzipan and cherries. I thought that you guys might be interested in how to make them yourselves so I have made a long picture post about it.
I was on Liz's tumblr being the stalky stalker that I am when I saw this picture:
and knew that I MUST HAVE THESE IN MY LIFE. A quick investigation determined that they are little cake balls covered in chocolate, but I decided that was too boring for me and that I would make them out of marzipan instead.
This was what I used, although it turned out I didn't really need the chocolate writing icing or the piping bag - twas but overpreparing. A box of marzipan, some chocolate chips for stingers, belgian chocolate for the stripes, cherries for the centre and cocktail sticks to hold the bees.
Cut about an inch thick slice out of the block and then divide it into three. (you end up with cuboids about 3cm by 2.5 by 5). If you're using already rolled marzipan, then just take about as much as it looks like in the picture below. Otherwise, you flatten out the cube like so:
As you can see, I was well-prepared with the British efficiency fuel of good strong tea. Now, I used dried glace cherries for the centre of mine, but morello cherries would work, and really you could put anything in the middle. Maybe not celery, though. Just make sure there's enough marzipan to more than cover the amount of fruit you have.
Roll the marzipan around the fruit, making sure it's totally hidden. You should make little egg shapes rather than balls.
A cocktail stick is good for holding the bee steady while you paint on the stripes, but try to make sure it sticks into the fruit you have in the middle - a couple of my bees sadly disintegrated when I missed and the cocktail stick just went straight through.
This was the one I tried to do with the chocolate writing icing. Unfortunately, writing icing is bizarre sticky stuff and very awkward to work with if you're constantly moving the object being decorated. So this bee looks a bit sorry for itself, poor thing. The face was done with melted chocolate, which is how I ended up doing the rest of the bees.
If you've never worked with melted chocolate over a long period of time before, the trick is hot water. You can melt the chocolate in the microwave if you're careful (burnt chocolate smells really weird) but you should keep it in a bowl of hot water for as long as you need it melted. Make sure to refresh the water because it cools down rather quickly.
You can see the paintbrush I used there - a normal acrylic brush that I only use for confectionary. Make sure you don't use one that's had paint on it!
You probably need to make sure there's a big dollop of chocolate on the brush before you paint it. Steady hands help but you can always lean on things, or make yourself a little clamp to hold it still. I've done it before with a peg, a box and a mobile phone!
Use a bit of melted chocolate to stick on the stingers, because marzipan doesn't hold well on its own.
I was requested by Liz to make a bee with a bow tie, so here you go! It looks a bit mad. I think I need to practice painting on marzipan.
In true seventies party fashion, I made little hedgehogs to put my bees on. It's half an orange wrapped in tin foil - exciting stuff. The one facing the camera is the writing icing one. I thought it deserved a nice view.
There we go, happy little bees! Only took three hours...