Sourdough is bread that uses wild, local yeasts as the raising agents. A portion of the dough is kept back when each loaf is baked and is used to raise the next one. A lovely self-contained and sustainable process – but how do you collect those wild local yeasts in the first place?
This is a recipe for an emergency pollen substitute (adapted from a Scottish Beekeepers recipe) I used last year. It saved several hives which would otherwise have fizzled out. This is for early spring use or when they have run out of pollen.
Please note – when bees become very weak they will not take a pollen substitute; they seem to lose the will to live and only sunshine will save them. Continue reading Spring Pollen Substitute→
I used to think that homemade soap would be a great way to use up some of that beeswax mountain. That is until I started to look into the subject and it turns out to be a bit more complicated than I thought.
For a start there’s the matter of CAUSTIC SODA. Note the capital letters there; those are there as a mark of Respect. When using Caustic Soda, be on your Toes because it is a VERY NASTY chemical indeed. Wear gloves, don’t spill it and don’t blame me if you do. Continue reading Beeswax Soap Recipe→
Brighten up your Burns night supper with some Scottish Flummery. Not an adjective but a noun!
According to Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary of 1901 Flummery is an ‘acid jelly made from the husks of oats’ and water but it has since come to mean ‘an empty compliment or anything insipid’. A recipe for traditional Flummery seems to bear this out, with its description of a rather flaccid, glutinous dish, resembling porridge but with the oats carefully removed. Continue reading Burns Night Special→
Here is a recipe for lip balm – it won’t help much with the beeswax mountain but if your lips are in tatters this is the stuff for you. If not, well it does have tatter-prevention properties if you smear some on before you go out in the elements. At the very least it will give you a nice glossy pout. Continue reading Lip Balm Recipe→