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Hen Corner

  • About
  • Courses
    • Online/Virtual Courses
    • Business Start Up
    • Retreats
    • Chickens & Bees
    • Bread & Baking
    • Artisan Food & Drink
    • Preserving
    • Families
    • Christmas
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Hen Corner

It’s a new dawn, It’s a new day…

Blog
| 11th January 2021
It’s a new life for me

Well, not a completely new life but a new year with a fresh start, and ‘I’m feeling good’.

Nothing more needs to be said about the disappointments of 2020, and yes, we are still living with challenges which look like they’ll get worse before it gets better, but let’s take encouragement from the wise words of a man called Paul who said:

‘So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.’

Whilst breakfast is the perfect start for the day, marmalade is the perfect start for the year!

This is because the Seville Oranges that we use to make our traditional bittersweet preserve are only in season for a very short window of a few weeks each January. Whilst we would usually invite guests to join us here at Hen Corner to prep and preserve in our sunny garden room, this year we have created a brand new online/virtual course allowing you to make your own marmalade in your own kitchen whilst we demonstrate and support you via Zoom.

I’ve written about marmalade many times before both in previous posts and several magazines and look forward with a sense of celebration to the first seasonal tradition of the year.

To join us for Marvellous Marmalade on Wednesday 20th January, 5-7pm, please book in here.

As well as starting the year with a new course, we’ve also got some new breads available in the bakery.

Throughout most of the year, I’m baking bread on our weekly courses as well as in our microbakery each Friday so don’t get much opportunity to try new ingredients or recipes, but last week after ordering some lovely new flour varieties from our friends at Wessex Mill, I created a couple of new product for our local customers.

First up was their Wessex Mixed Grain, to which I simply added salt, yeast and water before working it into a smooth dough.

Then for something a bit more special, I used their Sunflower blend and added local honey as I worked the dough, topping the finish loaf with extra sunflower seeds before baking into our Sunflower and Honey loaf, pictured below.

Like many others, I’m trying to reduce the amount of bread that I eat, particularly if I’m not out and about as much at the moment, but an occasional slice of fabulous homemade bread is a treat that’s worth allowing.

If you’d like to have a go at baking your own bread, we are running online/virtual classes every Monday at 5pm.

If you are doing Veganuary, all our online/virtual bread & preserves courses are vegan or have vegan options available on request.

Courses in person here at Hen Corner
Inviting guests to join us here in person, meeting the chickens, inspecting the bees and getting hands on with learning all the new skills that we’ve developed has always been central to the core mission of Hen Corner. We currently have dates scheduled for most of our courses throughout the year. If you are hoping to join us, on any course here at Hen Corner, and are concerned as to whether they will be able to go ahead, please see below re: Covid guidelines/restrictions (as we currently understand them):
  1. We are able to run small group sessions using our COVID-19 Risk Assessment in Tiers 1-3, however, we would ask you not to travel to us from a higher tier.
  2. If, at the time of the scheduled course, we (London) are in Tier 4 or above (or Lockdown), we will give guests the option of  a) a full refund or b) a rescheduled course plus a complimentary online/virtual course worth up to £35.
  3. If you would like to buy a course as a gift for someone else, our Gift Vouchers are a flexible way of allowing the recipient to choose their favourite course and date.

Other news:

  • After a quick check on our honey bees, all three colonies are alive and well with enough food stores to see them through until the first spring flowers
  • Our free weekly Brentford Together Community Cooking sessions are starting again on Thursday register for the Zoom class here
  • As the days get longer, the hens are slowly coming back into lay. It’s just the hybrids at the moment, though I’m sure I spotted a bantam egg in the nest box a few days ago…

Jobs for the week:

  • Boil up oranges for 50+ jars of marmalade (some already pre-sold!)
  • Start planning what crops I’d like to grow, both in the kitchen garden here and down on the allotment
  • Finish my tax return!

Have a good week,

Sara

It’s a new dawn, It’s a new day… was last modified: February 3rd, 2021 by Sara Ward
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1 comment

iamthesunking 12th January 2021 at 8:52 pm

Which Paul was that? Paul S from down the road?

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SOME OF OUR COURSES:

Christmas Wreaths (Virtual Course via Zoom)

1st November 2019

Using trimmings from the garden and a selection of ribbons and decorations; this special course has been designed to bring together friends as we make a Christmas Wreath at the beginning of the festive season…

Where Does My Food Come From?

20th April 2017

Celebrate the seasons! Join with us as we explore the garden looking for signs of new life and celebrate…

Perfect Pasta – Supper Session

20th September 2016

Bringing a taste of Italy, this special course has been designed to help develop your artisan culinary skills as we create beautiful fresh pasta in our London kitchen...

Urban Hens – Keeping Chickens in London

12th June 2016

A summer’s evening in the kitchen garden… You will be welcomed with home made refreshments and introduced to the joys of keeping chickens!

Cheese in a Day

12th June 2016

Bring your pinny and roll up your sleeves, this special course has been designed to help develop your artisan culinary skills as we separate the curds and whey, creating three different cheeses in our London kitchen…

Christmas Food Gifts (Make A Hamper)

22nd September 2016

It's a wonderful thing to create beautiful home made treats for friends and family at Christmas. Join us for the day as we bake, roast, preserve and decorate to fill gift baskets for the festive season...

Pick and Pickle

12th June 2016

Pickles, Chutneys, Jellies and more! Stroll around our London kitchen garden picking the best of the bounty, then off to the conservatory to prep & preserve…

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About Hen Corner

We are Hen Corner. We love the bee keepers, the veggie bed diggers, the jam makers and cider drinkers, the chicken fanciers and the real bread bakers. But not just in the deepest darkest countryside or the far, far away villages but right here in our cities and towns.

Recent Posts

  • Boing! Spring Forward…
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    10th March 2021
  • It’s All About The Bread…
    In Blog
    3rd February 2021
  • It’s a new dawn, It’s a new day…
    In Blog
    11th January 2021
  • 2020 – Our Best Nine
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What a smashing day! A good gang helped carry salv What a smashing day!
A good gang helped carry salvaged decking to the allotment #ruleofsix We had our first ‘in person’ Chicken Keeping Course for 6 months #twohouseholds and I developed a new recipe for Spiced Fruit Sourdough Buns 
🤗🤗🤗🐓🐓🐓☀️☀️☀️
Fun in the sun - at last!. Our poor hens have been Fun in the sun - at last!. Our poor hens have been cooped up (literally) for 4 months to protect them from avian flu. Today they taste grass again... ☀️🐓🐓🐓
Hello Artichoke 👋🏻 You are looking mighty fi Hello Artichoke 👋🏻
You are looking mighty fine *checks for eggs for Hollandaise* #plotsurprise
As we enter #HolyWeek and remember the events of t As we enter #HolyWeek and remember the events of the first #Easter, our spring wreath, as a never ending circle, reminds us of eternal love and faithfulness. Decorated with some of the first flowers from the garden holding the promise of much more to come.
This is the colony that I have high hopes for! Las This is the colony that I have high hopes for! Last year they went through 4 or 5 queens (don’t ask!) but are now making up for lost time...
Hopefully, they’ll be planning to expand because I want to move some of them down to the allotment soon.
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Alongside our Hot Cross Buns, we love to celebrate Alongside our Hot Cross Buns, we love to celebrate with our Easter Apricot Couronne... Sweet dough twisted around apricots, raisins and pecans flavoured with orange zest, topped with apricot glaze, flaked almonds and icing 🐣👑🐣Available for collection Thursday 1st April, ready for the long weekend, you’d be a fool to miss it!
First batch of sourdoughs out of the oven! #sunny First batch of sourdoughs out of the oven!
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Stunning sunset swoosh down the Thames... Simple p Stunning sunset swoosh down the Thames...
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Hooray! Today is the day that we officially switch Hooray! Today is the day that we officially switch to #organic feed for our London flock of 22 hens 🤗🐓🐓🐓🐓🤗
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It’s our big #RealBreadWeek Bake Day! Alongside It’s our big #RealBreadWeek Bake Day!
Alongside our customers orders, I’m also baking 58 loaves to donate to @hounslow_foodbox (many sponsored by our generous customers).
It was an early start, but the sun is shining and we all get good bread!
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Glad to be back, Glad to be back - Oh oh... . . . Glad to be back, Glad to be back - Oh oh...
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⭐️Giveaway Baking Bundle worth £75!!!⭐️ C ⭐️Giveaway Baking Bundle worth £75!!!⭐️
Celebrating Real Bread Week 20th-28th February 
Win a Hen Corner Fairtrade Apron plus *Two Places* on our ‘Intro to Bread Course’ (virtual) for you and a friend. We’ll also post out a bread scraper each for you to use on the course! 
To enter: 
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I couldn’t resist sharing this! Today’s mentor I couldn’t resist sharing this!
Today’s mentoring session with our new @breadangels included a #HotCrossBun class 😋😋😋
Oh my, they taste amazing 😍
Learn how to make your own in our Online/Virtual Class (8th March) or swing by our bakery on 26th March or 1st April...
Hip hip hooray! The girls are back in lay... Hip hip hooray!
The girls are back in lay...
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