Maple "Honeybee" Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate, Almond Brittle Glaze

Directions

1. Maple "Honeybee" Cake
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Grease and flour a large 10-inch bundt pan and set aside.
4. In a small bowl, stir together the espresso powder with the boiling water, and cool to room temperature.
5. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, chocolate, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt to blend, and set aside.
6. In a separate medium bowl, mix on medium speed, 3/4 cup MAPLE SYRUP, liquified and cooled honey, oil and the cooled coffee.
7. In a mixing bowl, beat with the electric mixer the eggs and 1/4 cup of MAPLE SYRUPon high for about 4 minutes.
8. Reduce speed on the mixer to low and slowly add the oil-honey-maple mixture into the egg-maple mixture, and mix well.
9. Add the orange liqueur, orange zest and mix another 1-2 minutes on medium speed.
10. Reduce speed to low, and slowly add the dry ingredients-flour mxture until blended.
11. Optional: If you want nuts on the top of your cake, place 1/2 cup of chopped toasted almonds or walnuts onto the bottom of the greased pan. If you do not want the nuts, skip this step.
12. Place the batter (over the nuts if using nuts) or directly into the pan, if not, filling not about 2/3 of the way with the batter. If you have any batter left over, use another small pan for that.
13. Bake in a preheated oven uncovered for about 30 minutes. Then cover the cake with foil, and continue to bake another 30-35 minutes until a tester comes out clean and there is no soft batter. DO NOT OVERBAKE-will burn.
14. Remove from oven and place on rack and cook completely. Once cooked add the topping as described below.

1. Bittersweet Chocolate, Almond Brittle Glaze and Marzipan Honeybees
2. Melt the chocolate in a small bowl over barely simmering water until melted .
3. Pour the melted chocolate over the cooled cake, covering it completely.
4. Take the caramel or almond chocolate brittle, chopped,into your hand, and place evenly over the bottom 1/3 of the cake.
5. Cut out the 5 inch wafer circle out of a phisinger wafer (found in many eastern European stores) and place it over the bundt hole in the middle so that it cover the hole and sits on the top of the cake, but does not cover the top totally. You may need to adjust the size to fit your cake.
6. Make the honeybees, by shaping the yellow marzipan into small 3/4 inch ovals, then squeesze the middle top for the head, and the bottom third for the back part of the bee. Paint the 2 eyes and the belly stripes with the black food dye pen. Attach 2 "wings" cut out of the caramel or plain sugar brittle. Use your creativity in this step-there is no right or wrong!
7. Pour about 1/2 cup of maple syrup over the wafer and strategically place the marzipan bees over the wafer, or higher up on toothpicks, so that it looks like they are sipping the honey.