Buns and Bunty

Grab them whilst they’re hot!

We love the seasons here at Hen Corner, every month brings it’s own celebration, hopefully with the associated weather (snow at Christmas, sunshine in Spring) and every celebration has it’s food traditions based around the availability of harvest at that time of year.

We’ve joined in some fabulous celebrations recently with our friends at Cultivate London, first an Asparagus Celebration with wine tasting that brought us a four course sumptuous meal in the candlelit poly-tunnel pairing some wonderful wines with beautiful dishes created by their in house chef, Matt, using produce grown in the Kitchen Garden.

Then, for their Easter Family Open Day, I was working with Matt to bake 96 Hot Cross Buns in their very hot cob oven, brushed with their own honey to make them shine! For more events at Cultivate London, do check out their website, I can’t wait for the Summer Soltice Party, I’m bringing the Sloe Gin!

A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on the top, and traditionally eaten on Good Friday… The buns mark the end of Lent and different parts of the hot cross bun have a certain meaning, including the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, and the spices inside signifying the spices used to embalm him at his burial….

Wiki

For more information on the history of Hot Cross Buns, check out this great post on ManyEats.

Back at the Hen Corner Micro Bakery, we’ve still got a couple of weeks of Hot Cross Buns for sale, and this year along with the traditional fruit flavours we are also baking apricot and cranberry buns which are delicious…

Bye bye Bunty

The Best of Bunty

Other News:

• The poly sheet covering our peaches seems to have helped to keep them dry, we’ll find out soon whether the bees have pollinated the tree and can look forward to a delicious harvest in the summer
• Our special event Easter at Hen Corner has completely sold out – I hope we have a lovely day, but not too hot to melt the chocolate…
• One colony of bees seem to be a bit small in numbers and slow to grow, yet the other colony are mad for it and are already making us delicious honey, it was a joy to inspect them at the weekend, come on you bees!

Jobs for the Week:

• Gather the mixing bowls for two big baking courses: Baking for Afternoon Tea and Baking Together – so much cake!
• Drive down to Dorking to collect three new hens, how lovely to add to the flock in time for Easter
• Start preparing my talks for the Country Living Spring Fair at Alexandra Palace, 27-30th April

What is your favourite thing about Easter? The food, the weather, the long bank holiday or something else? 

Have a great break,

Sara