Bienenstich is the German cake made with a yeast dough base, a cream or custard layer, and a crunchy almond topping.
Its name literally means “bee sting,” although the cake is named for its honeyed almond topping rather than for an ingredient called bee sting. The topping is commonly prepared with butter, sugar, honey and sliced almonds, which caramelize during baking.
After the cake has cooled, it is often split horizontally and filled with pastry cream, buttercream or vanilla cream. Recipes differ across bakeries, so the filling is not completely fixed, but the yeast cake and almond topping define the classic form.
Bienenstich is frequently served as an afternoon cake. It should not be confused with Butterkuchen, another German yeast cake that may also use almonds but generally lacks Bienenstich’s characteristic cream filling.