Review: Deutsche Küche frozen Bienenstich

There are only two things I really care about: impressing people and death sugar. Baking involves both of those things and I derive a lot of--what's the approximation of joy for a person who obsessively competes with others? Whatever that is, that's the thing I get from it.

But I'm also really impatient, not exactly a character trait compatible with baking. I don't wait for the oven to pre-heat. I don't wait for cakes to cool before I frost them. I don't even really have the patience for meringue to whip up properly. But damn if I'll let that stop me from getting ambitious when it comes to people's birthdays.

In (yet another) attempt to impress someone I was dating, I came across a recipe for a cool-looking German dessert: Bienenstich, or bee sting cake. It's a more like a pastry, really--two bready layers with custard in between and a honeyed almond-encrusted exterior. I heard it was a little tricky, especially as you need to put a bunch of bees inside of it, but that just made me even more determined.

awwww heck yeah

I was working night shift at the time and frequently getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep on my days off (there was a lot of crying in the grocery store during this time) but it didn't matter: I needed to make this cake or I was going to be exposed for the mediocre poseur I was. 

When it came to the custard I thought I would just wing it because being awake for 38 hours straight will make you think things like that are a good idea. And...well:

WHO COULD EVER LOVE ME?!?

My then-boo thought it was tasty but I knew I was an embarrassment to my family. I banished the cake to the back of the fridge, shamefully consuming it only when I was alone. 

In a departure from what I think is most people's routine at Aldi--quickly shoving a bunch of cereal and almond milk into a bag they got free from the library and pretending they actually know the store layout, then going home and taking an Ativan--I decided to check out the frozen section and was excited to see a proper Bienenstich from the Deutsche Küche (that's German for Douche Cooker, don't ask me why) brand. It was my 25th birthday that weekend and what better way to celebrate than by reminding myself of my past failures?

Plus, it had this packaging:

Indulgent cakes? Oh hell yes. As opposed to some non-indulgent cakes I could name.

I celebrated a quarter of a century on Earth the way most people do--by lying in my bed, despairing, until about 9pm when I remembered--I had cake in the freezer! I hustled my butt into the kitchen and opened the box to find 4 perfect rectangles of German pastry. Sadly, while unwrapping them, the clingy plastic took off some of the almonds. 

Then I turned the box over and read "defrost for 3-4 hours." I'm an impatient person (see above) but that seemed unreasonable and cruel. I wasn't sad enough to eat frozen Aldi cake at 1 in the morning, depressing birthday notwithstanding. So I did what any person in my position would do and put the cake back for another day turned the oven on to 200. And waited barely long enough for the custard to defrost. Okay, to be TOTALLY honest I just let the edges defrost and then put it back in for another 10 minutes to let the middle defrost and continued eating it. Yes, I have a problem. Or problems.

not completely unfrozen, but not completely bad, either

I have to say, except for the custard consistency, maybe I didn't fail as badly as I thought I did with my own Bienenstich attempt. Maybe this dessert is just pretty average. I don't think the freezer birthplace had anything to do with it, really, except the almonds were a bit soggy. This was partly made up for by the fact that the bready edges got kind of toasted in the oven--so I'm not sure if the textures would be too similar if you have the patience of a saint/regular person and waited for this jawn (yo, Philly) to defrost sans oven. 

The most notable thing about this cake is the intense yeasty flavor--which is not particular to the Deutsche Küche version, but just a characteristic of this pastry. It's basically bread with a fluffy kind of vanilla cream, which is actually a bit gross if you can imagine it. 

So, I'm going to advise you lovely readers to go ahead and skip this one and maybe just get some fancy French toast for brunch instead. Unless you're 25 and your only passport to the world is through a box you found in the Aldi frozen section. Here's to another year!