Bees & Baking (in the heat!)

Phew, it’s hot – and it’s due to get hotter!

It’s only the crazy that would layer themselves up in protective clothing to stick their head in a hive, or crank up the heat to bake bread in an oven during this weather, but as they say ‘Make hay whilst the sun shines…’

The bees are absolutely loving this sun and, with a few downpours of rain overnight to soak the soil, the bees are finding fabulous forage in nectar rich flowers allowing them to store up lots of honey in the hive. So much so that I’ve been moving spare honey frames from one apiary to another, I keep bees on three different sites in Brentford, and have spent evenings either extracting honey (so that I can give the empty frames back to the bees allowing them to fill them up again) or getting my hammer and nails out to make new frames so that the bees can have a ‘loft extension’ on their hives for more storage space.

The process of extracting honey begins by removing the bees from the honey frames inside the hive, by using a valve that clears them away, bringing the ‘bee-free’ frames of honey into the house then shutting all the doors and windows so that the bees can’t smell the honey and fly back to collect it!

I then remove the wax capping from each cell using a special fork before spinning four frames at a time in a centrifuge drum. The honey drips down the inside of the drum and we simply filter it through a metal sieve (to remove stray flakes of wax) before pouring it into jars for sale.

Over the next couple of months, throughout July and August, we have the last Bee Keeping Courses of the year: Full Day Bee Keeping Thursday 14th August and  Bees for Children 5th & 30th July, 4th & 13th August.

At all of our courses which involve bee keeping, including the ever popular Where Does My Food Come From? on Tuesday 29th July, we start our introduction over homemade elderflower cordial, made from the elderflowers in our garden which are pollinated by the bees, and our famous Honey & Oat Cookies.

I can’t tell you how many times I’m asked for the recipe, I didn’t include it in my book as it’s so simple. So here it is, below, by popular request – if you make some (a great summer holiday activity), let me know how you get on…

We were thrilled to win a prize for these cookies at the National Honey Show 2014

Honey & Oat Cookies

Ingredients:

100g Margarine

60g Demerara Sugar

2 tbsp Honey

120g Jumbo Porridge Oats

120g Self Raising Flour

Makes 12 large cookies

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c 
2. Put the margarine, sugar and honey into a large saucepan and heat through until all the ingredients have melted into each other.
3. Tip the oats and flour into the saucepan and draw together with a wooden spoon. Ensure the mixture is well combined, it will thicken as it starts to cool.
4. Using a metal dessert spoon, put even size scoops of the dough, spaced with room to spread, onto a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Shape and flatten the balls of dough with wet fingers.
5. Bake for 14 minutes, turning down the temperature after 12 minutes if it starting to brown too quickly around the edges.
6. Leave to cool on the sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack, to cool completely.
7. If they are not all eaten straight away, they can be stored in an air tight tin.

Baking courses throughout the Summer

To enjoy your own beautiful homemade bakes at picnics, parties and sunset suppers, come and learn how to make a whole range of breads in our cool open sided garden room.

We have our classic Introduction to Making Bread on Thursday 31st July and Thursday 27th August

All kinds of treats on Introduction to Scandinavian Baking on Tuesday 12th August

And exactly what it says with Making Bagels, Muffins & Swirls on Thursday 21st August

Click each link for the full description of what we make on each course – all participants take home everything that they’ve made, quite literally bags full!

 

Along with the courses and events here at Hen Corner, we are looking forward to joining in with a couple of big festivals over the coming weeks.

The London Permaculture Festival is on Sunday 6th July at Cecil Sharp House, where I’ll be running a couple of workshops; Keeping Bees in your Garden and Living the Good Life in the City see here for full schedule.

I’m also delighted to have been invited back to Gardeners’ World Fair – Autumn at Audley End House on Friday 29th – Sunday 31st July. I’ll be working with TV presenter Chris Bavin at The Autumn Table giving sessions on Apples Galore, preserving your harvest for the colder months and more.

Coming up at Hen Corner:

July

London Permaculture Festival Sunday 6th

Bees for Children Saturday 5th

Where Does My Food Come From? Tuesday 29th

Bees for Children Wednesday 30th

Introduction to Making Bread Thursday 31st

August

Family Feathers & Fun Saturday 2nd

Bees for Children Monday 4th

Introduction to Scandinavian Baking Tuesday 12th

Bees for Children Wednesday 13th

Full Day Bee Keeping Thursday 14th

Urban Hens – Keeping Chickens in London Wednesday 20th

Making Bagels, Muffins & Swirls Thursday 21st

Introduction to Making Bread Thursday 27th

Gardeners’ World Fair – Autumn Friday 29th – Sunday 31st

Other news:

• Our American Homesteaders had a great time discovering all that we could produce in our garden, so much smaller than their 100acre plots!
• The climbing beans are reaching for the sky at the allotment
• We’ve been foraging and found some beautiful, petite Mirabelle Plums…

Jobs for the week:

• Take the Chickens to the Summer Market curated by Dapper & Suave on Sunday 29th June at Syon House
• Pot up the first batch of this year’s honey
• Teach 90 school children to make bread, all at once, and make sure that they each take home their own loaves…

Stay cool, stay hydrated, stay happy

I hope to see you soon,

Sara