Larry indulged my bee obsession and bought me an adorable cake pan for Christmas.

The pan has two reservoirs for cake batter, one for each side of the cake, so it ends up as a 3D hive. I went ahead and just make the recipe that came with the cake – a simple snack cake flavored with lemon and honey. It’s an okay cake, not the greatest.

Really, any cake recipe that’s appropriate for a large Bundt pan would work here. The two things that are really needed are a bit of buttercream (to glue the two sides together) and a thick glaze (as decoration and to hide the seams down the side).

The little bees are made with royal icing. I had meringue powder, so I used that to make the icing. It doesn’t taste very good, so if you want the bees to be edible, make a real royal icing with actual egg whites. I made a LOT of bees, which turned out to be a good thing. They’re delicate, and I broke a good number of them.

• Honey Lemon Beehive Cake (Williams-Sonoma)