New Celeb' on the main site

Very pleased and flattered to have a new celebrity listed on the main web site. Can you guess who? Very much related to a recent post here.

Matching English Puddings with Wine

My other great passion in life is Wine - particularly French, Spanish or Italian. That said I can be persuaded (without too much of a struggle) to try anything. The majority of people who enjoy wine normally associate matching with starters and main courses but dessert is often overlooked. The pleasure of pudding can be enhanced by pairing with a suitable wine. But which wine? I'd be interested to know what you think and what you have tried. Typically a sweet wine is the best accompaniment but while some things work better than others it is about pleasure and not rules. I'd love to build a comprehensive set of suggestions to include on the main site and as a feature page here. What do you think?

Bramble Jelly update

Following the bumper harvest the jelly making has finally finished. Total production from the fruit collected was 21 pounds. The secret ingredient in the last batch was the sloes from last year's sloe gin. After removing from the gin I froze a couple of kilos one of which I used in place of blackberries in the last batch - the Cuvée Spécial. To this I also added a couple of cinamon sticks and some cloves during the cooking of the fruit. The house smelt of Christmas and mulled wine. The resulting jellies are sweet (as you would expect) but the sweetness is quickly followed by a rush of fruit flavour which is absolutely fantastic. Great this morning with Corinne's croissants. From a recipe perspective you could replace any of the jam ingredients with the jelly which will do equally as well.

Breakfast bliss!

Corinne's croissants, home made yoghurt, home made bramble jelly (about which more in a minute), fresh coffee, chooks scratching, bees buzzing - bliss. Think lens on camera needs cleaning!

Blackberry Classic

After three days of jelly making I thought I would bring you a classic English recipe - blackberry & Apple Crumble. This beauty is so simple to make and you don't need to make it more complicated or add any little twists. It's perfect as it is and served with a little double cream is simply heaven. I have updated the recipe increasing the amount of blackberries and the brown sugar mainly because I had more berries left over from the jelly making and I've got a sweeter tooth. I also increased the cooking time althouth, all ovens differ so keep an eye on it. You can see the recipe on the main site by clicking here. Further updates on the jelly making tomorrow, one more batch to finish in the morning.

Blackberries by the bucket load!

Spent a couple of hours with my big Bro' picking blackberries from a favourite family hunting ground. The berries are fantastic this year and the flavour outstanding. They may be small but they are sweet and delicious. Mum's memory of where to find crab apples was spot on too. The previous day's wind and rain had done us a huge favour as there were plenty on the ground where they had landed softly amongst the leaves in the wood. We filled the second bucket in about 10 minutes. We ended up with about 7 kilos of blackberries and about 6 kilos of crab apples!

Now thoughts turn to what to do with our bountiful harvest? From a puddings perspective there has got to be a blackberry and apple crumble naturally. The rest will go into making blackberry and crab apple jelly which I think we've got enough jars for - just! Just need to buy a couple of tonnes of sugar. Also going to do an experimental version with something we harvested last year. Bet you can't guess what that is. Check back in the next couple of days to find out. Now where's that preserve pan gone?

Honey recipes

Ok so what traditional English puddings can we enjoy with honey? Something really simple but a delicious change is to add a couple of table spoons of honey to cream before whipping it and then spooning over summer fruits. Very tasty.

You can find a couple of ideas on the main site under Honey Apple Batter Pudding or Honey Tart. The latter is a variation on treacle tart!

Hope you like them. Give them a try and let me know how you get on.

Thoughts turning to blackberries now - watch this space.

And the Honey winner is......

Me! We (the bees really) managed 31 pounds. The flavour is outstanding and it will be a while before we see if it is going to solidify. At the moment is gloriously liquid which makes it great for adding to yoghurt or pouring over fresh summer fruits. Better still on some home baked bread - delicious. Watch out for honey based recipes to follow.

Honey, honey, honey!

On a scorching morning we relieved our hard working girls of their crop of liquid gold. We've only had them since May but what a great job they've done. After removing the supers we set about extracting. Initial tasting while uncapping is always exciting and the honey is fantastic. We both agreed that there was a hint of citrus about the flavour which we have no idea where it could have come from unless someone has planted a load of orange or lemon trees somewhere near by. I am wagering that we have around 40 pounds and Corinne reckons we have nearer 60. We'll see tomorrow when we weigh it. Don't think we will beat our 2009 crop of 90 pounds!

Our new labels arrived this morning and with the jars that came on Thursday we are all set for jarring. Thoughts turn now to recipes with honey, although not the precious stuff in jars - way too good for cooking. Each year we melt down the wax cappings and the wax floats on top of the liquid honey and after it cools it's really easy to lift off. What you are left with is "cooked" honey which is still very tasty but no longer pure in that the heat changes its character and flavour.

Our honey comes out of the hive, is spun gently in the extractor which has an initial coarse filter to remove the occassion dead bee or bee body part. After we finish we run the honey out of the tank under the extractor through two more filters that take out anything that made it through the first one. After it settles for 24 hours it goes directly into sterilised jars. After adding labels its ready for sale. Hmmmmmm.

Check back in the next couple of days for updates and photos.