Bee Focused

This morning I drove up to Topsfield and entered a cheesecake in the Fair. This was for the Beekeeping Department's Baking with Honey competition. I discovered they had a category for cheesecakes and I'd recently received a cookbook from a nurse at work that was all honey recipes. The cheesecake recipe was four ingredients: cream cheese, honey, eggs and vanilla. Suffice to say I'd never made this cheesecake before, and probably making it and entering it in the fair was...brave? Something, anyway.

Making the cheesecake yesterday was a messy affair. First of all, the recipe was just for the cheesecake itself, no crust, and the pan was supposed to be set in water. I was having none of that, though. I made a graham cracker crust, prebaked it, and made the cheesecake batter. This is where things started to derail. In school we learned to pour viscous fluids like honey into little pouches of plastic wrap and then squeeze out through a hole in the bottom. Less waste. Evidently I squeezed too hard, and honey blooped out all over my hand, the outside of the mixing bowl, and the counter. I think a little actually ended up in the batter. I salvaged what I could. Not having a dishwasher is really a pain.

I'm not sure what it is about baking for the Fair that draws out the chutzpah and clumsiness in me all at once.

Anyway, I baked this cheesecake for about 65 minutes at 300˚F and let it cool. And it cracked. Not much I could do about it now, I guess. This morning I drizzled it with honey and sprinkled it with lavender buds and drove two hours round trip to get it there. Fingers crossed? Maybe?

This afternoon, rather late in the day, I changed the feeder for the bees again. I only have a few more weeks to build up their stores, after all. They were remarkably docile, both hives. I take that as a good sign.