Bake Off!

It is that time of year again- The Great British Bake Off is on TV! As a family we like to bake- Trev bakes the bread, so the episode about bread always raises new possibilities and this time was no exception- bagels!!

So out came the recipes and we had a go- I have to say with great results- Trev produced not only bagels but plaited (OK only three plaits but why get complicated?) walnut and Stilton loaf for tea, as well as our everyday loaf- what a baker!

Uniting Colonies

Earlier in the month I talked about the newspaper method often used to unite colonies of bees. Basically to give the bees time to get used to each other they are separated by a sheet of newspaper with a few holes punched in. One colony has a queen (queen right) the other does not- opinion varies which should go on top but this time we put the colony with the queen on the bottom, then newspaper then the brood box with no queen on top of that. That colony had supers with stores so we also put those on top.

The bees are then given time to chew through the newspaper- by the time they have they are all used to each other and should get on! 

The bees eat away the newspaper.

Time has to be given for any brood in the top brood box to hatch and then it can be cleared and taken away leaving just one brood box with the queen and new brood.

The bits of newspaper are thrown out of the hive - it looks just like dust!

Venetian Carrot Cake

For the recent Allotment Show refreshments were provided and I made some carrot cake- I used the Hummingbird Bakery recipe (http://hummingbirdbakery.com/)  it was delicious and moist, but I also came across a recipe from Nigella for a gluten free carrot cake- and decided to give this a try as well , (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gluten-free_and_11807 ) as it has no flour there are lots of ground almonds alongside the carrots and sultanas in rum! Instead of butter the cake also uses olive oil- it specifies regular olive oil, as I only had extra virgin oil I thought I would give some cold pressed rape seed oil a try- on the bottle it suggests using in place of butter in baking.

The results were delicious- not a light sponge but a fairly dense and rich cake- I would make it again for the right occasion , but the Hummingbird recipe is lovely as an everyday easy carrot cake - I made it as a tray bake with a small amount of the cream cheese frosting on top which worked brilliantly and was much easier to eat outdoors than the layered cake in the book.