Jelly Bean Poppy’s Bees

May 21, 2012

These are not jelly beans. They are jelly bees.
.

At least they will be before we’re done here.

The other day I showed you some cookies I did for Team Poppy’s Bees.

It was my first time to use my bee cookie cutter from Ecrandal and while I was happy enough with the way they turned out, they just needed a little sum-thun sum-thun. So I made some honeycomb cookies.

And I liked those well enough too but still,  even with non-pareil black stripes and a little sanding sugar here and there the cookies didn’t pop. In other words, it was time to bring out the big guns.
Candy Cookie Bling.
Enter Jelly Bean Poppy’s Bees.

NOW I’m happy.
So I’m sure just by looking at the candy bees you could figure out how to make them all by your lonesome but for the sake of  justifying a tutorial on jelly bean bumble bees I’m going to pretend you can’t rub two sticks together to make a fire, are incapable of adding 2 and 2 together in a way that comes out to 4, and that you couldn’t find your way out of a paper bag with one end open. Yes, these are the mind games I have to play with myself at times.

Okay, here we go. Jelly Bean Bumble Bees 101.

Making jelly bean bees is easy-peasy mac and cheesy. Just pipe stripes of black glaze, or royal icing if that’s how you roll, across the bean. Because glaze spreads more than royal icing I use a #0 piping tip. Finish out the bee’s body with a couple dots for eyes and a dot on the other end for the bee’s butt buzz button (aka stinger).

So there’s your bumble bee body. Once the icing is dry use a pair of kitchen tweezers to move them to their final destination.
Now about those wings.

All you need to do is cut white jelly beans in half which sounds easy enough until the knife blade slips off the surface of the bean and cuts a major artery in your hand which as any contestant on “Chopped” will tell you, ruins your chance for ever becoming the Chopped Champion. Even if you manage to actually cut through the outer sugary shell of the jelly bean, chances are you’re going to end up with two halves that are smashed and cracked. So here’s my tip. Put a few beans at a time in the microwave for 6-8 seconds to soften the bean making them easier to cut through cleanly without crushing them.

Now all that’s left to do is put a little icing glue on the cookie and add the bee body and wings.

Oh, and if you’re thinking it probably takes too much time to do one little beanie bug body at a time you’re right. That’s why I laid down a few lines of jelly beans on the wax paper and then  piped one long single strand of icing down each one line of bees going back and forth without breaking the icing until all the bees had their stripes.

While it’s a little risky adding candy bling to cookies that are being shipped, sometimes I just can’t help myself. That’s me. Risk-taker.

Posted in Tips_Tricks_Techniques