Bourbon Coffee Cake with Apple Butter Swirl

This post is affiliated with the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about #VeganMoFo here. In each post this month, I hope to give you a tidbit of information that will make you think about your food or animals.

Honey bees.

As a kid, bees always frightened me. A lot. I will run like a racehorse if there’s a bee chasing me. I remember the sting hurting so bad and sitting on the porch in tears. Last summer, I was stung for the first time in 20 years; it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I remember!

Anyhoo, although I’m not a fan of bees and bugs in general, honey bees are incredibly important. This coffee cake would not be possible without them.

In an article for Mother Nature Network, Maria Boland writes, “Typically, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these under-appreciated workers pollinate 80 percent of our flowering crops which constitute 1/3 of everything we eat. Losing them could affect not only dietary staples such as apples, broccoli, strawberries, nuts, asparagus, blueberries and cucumbers, but may threaten our beef and dairy industries if alfalfa is not available for feed.

One Cornell University study estimated that honeybees annually pollinate $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the U.S. Essentially, if honeybees disappear, they could take most of our insect pollinated plants with them, potentially reducing mankind to little more than a water diet.”

For an easy-to-use resource, check out this infographic from Bees Free:

When we finally have a house with some land, I would like to host some honey bee hives. I’ve read articles where you can volunteer your land and have beekeepers from the local college come and maintain the hives. I know I couldn’t do it myself, but it’s great to know that there are programs to preserve the lives of bees.

You can get more information on hosting bee habitats by contacting a local beekeeping organization, from either Bee Culture or the American Beekeeping Federation.

Now, on to the recipe!

You need to make my super-easy Bourbon Apple Butter for this coffee cake, so get crackin’!