Ingredients

Wet
100g tahini
2 tbsp water
60ml sunflower oil
45g thick honey
2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry
125g plain flour
120g sugar
130g chopped dates
75g jumbo oats
½ tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

• Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan) or 350F/gas 4
• Line two large baking trays with greaseproof paper
• Put the wet ingredients in a bowl and give them a good stir
• Put the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and give them a good stir
• Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and combine to make a thick dough
• Divide into 12, form into balls, arrange on the baking trays and flatten slightly
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, until well browned but the middle still soft
• Leave to cool for a few minutes
• Place on a wire rack to cool.

Click here for Benjamina Ebuehi’s ‘Carrot & Crumb’ blog

The header picture above is from the Bayeux tapestry and shows the Normans also drinking from horns (and cups) and appropriately captioned far right ‘HIC’

To see the entire, beautiful Bayeux tapestry online go to: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/explore-online/

Mead making

If you are into making wine, you will be into foraging the ingredients for next-to-nothing and probably balk at the notion of purchasing several pounds of honey. Even supermarket honey makes mead-making an expensive proposistion – and who knows what is in supermaket honey. Probably not much honey I reckon.

But if you are a beekeeper who is into making wine, mead becomes do-able. So if you have some honey and feel inclined to give it a go here is a mead recipe I’ve used several times with a good rate of success. It’s from  C.J.J. Berry’s classic book ‘First Steps in Winemaking’ which is available here: https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/first-steps-in-winemaking-cjj-berry-p-477.html

I suggest you don’t use ivy or heather honey.  I’ve tried both and the results were  horrible. Use a nice mild, light honey instead.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

Before you get stuck in though – I cannot stress enough how important it is to sterlise all your equipment thoroughly. I used to be a bit on the slap-dash and feckit side of cleanliness but the best results have been when I’ve taken the time to be clean.

thehomebrewcompany.ie have a range of sterilisers

Use an air lock to exclude air and fruit flies and to allow the escape of carbon dioxide. Fruit flies carry the bacteria which will convert alcohol to vinegar and this is why they are sometimes called vinegar flies. These are the little black chaps you might find rolling about in your beer or wine. They have a very short, neat life cycle which is one reason why geneticists like them so much. Another reason is that their genes are actually very similar to our own!

And remember: time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana.

Dry Mead Recipe

Ingredients

• 2kg honey
• 1 orange
• 1 lemon
• 4.5 litres water
• Wine yeast and nutrient
• Pectic enzyme

Method

1. Mix the honey into the water and bring to simmering point and skim off the scum;
2. Pour into a bucket and allow to cool;
3. Add the juice from the orange and the lemon plus an all-purpose wine yeast, nutrient and pectic enzyme;
4. Closely cover the  bucket with a cloth and leave in a warm place for a week;
5. After that,  pour the mixture into a demi-john, fit with an airlock and leave until the ferment stops and the mead clears.
6. Siphon the mead off the sediment into a clean jar and leave for a year.

Mead from cappings

First wash the honey from the cappings:

• Place them into a large bucket and pour in enough cold water to cover genorously then roll up your sleeves, agitate the mess, cover and leave overnight.
• Next day, if you have two buckets so much the better, pour the contents from the first bucket into the second and agitate again.
• Keep doing this until you think you’ve washed most of the honey into the water.
• Now strain out the cappings.
• You should now have a bucket of murky looking water. This is your starting liquor – no harm to run it through a fine cloth.

Unless you are going to make cave-man mead you will need to know just how much sugar is in your starting liquor and for this you will need a hydrometer.  Too little sugar and the mead will be ‘runny’, too much and the yeast might not start at all.

A hydrometer is a simple piece of equipment which uses the viscosity of a liquid to indirectly assess its sugar content. They are cheap, easy to use and readily available here: https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/hydrometer-p-94.html

Basically it is a glass tube with a scale printed on it with a weighted bulb at the bottom. You drop it into your liquor and after bobbing about a bit, it will come to a rest. At this point you can read off the number closest to the top of the liquid.   The more sugar there is, the thicker the liquor will be, the higher your hydrometer will float and the bigger your SG number will be.

The table below is from C.J.J.Berry’s book. It’s in imperial measures.

You can click this image for a full size table:

SG stands for Specific Gravity – you can google that if you like because I’m not going to get into it here.

• Locate your SG in  column 1;
• Column 2 will tell you the potential alcohol per SG;
• Column 3 will tell you how much sugar per gallon is in the liquor;
• Column 4 Ignore column 4
• Column 5 Ignore column 5

An important thing to note is potential alcohol content of your wine. Please note the word ‘potential’ is in bold there and the reason is that there is many a slip twixt cup and lip.  A ferment may stall early on or just not go all the way out. There are many reasons why that might be but that is outwith the context of this article. C.J.J. covers it in detail in his book.

So what I do is, I get my SG, look a the potential alcohol and the  amount of sugar per gallon. Let’s say the SG is 1070 which corresponds to 9.2 percent alcohol – I’d rather aim for 17% on the grounds that I’d be more likely to end up with 13-14%.

For 17% I’d need to have 3lb 4oz of sugar per gallon but at the moment there is only 1lb 13oz so I’d need to add 1lb 7oz per gallon to the liquor.

However, honey is between 16-18% water so you need to add another 20% of honey. 20% of 1lb13oz is about 6oz so I’d add in 2lb 3oz per gallon altogether and it won’t be far out.

Yeast

Lash out on a good wine yeast. These specialist yeasts have been bred by winemakers for centuries to start working at high sugar and to tolerate a lot of alcohol. Wild yeasts can out-compete wine yeasts if allowed in early but they will fizzle out as alcohol starts to accumulate and your ferment will fail.

Good luck and have fun!

Click here to go to thehomebrewcompany.ie

Click here for more about cooking with honey

Click here for more honey recipes

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Most recipes will start you ‘grating’ your beeswax which is horrible – if one day your are feeling particularly smug or happy – grating a bit of beeswax should set you straight again. It’s also the best way I know to destroy every cheese-grater known to man not to mention fingernails and knuckles. The sharper the grater the more dangerous it becomes and fingernails and strips of skin do not add to the aesthetics of your wraps.

Also, many recipes use pine resin or ‘rosin’. This is a by-product of turpentine production and, apparently it gives the  wraps a slightly tacky feel so they will stick together when you parcel up your sandwiches or whatever. Unfortunately you’re unlikely to find rosin in the supermarket.  If you are a musician, you might have some or know where to find some – my Uncle used to apply it to his violin bow – I suppose the tackiness makes for a more satisfying screech.

But rosin is not essential – there are alternatives such as hairy string or rubber bands – which are widely available. Hairy string has rustic charm and makes for a very attractive parcel. Another alternative is to employ the ancient art of origami and fold your beeswax wraps into a novelty lunch box. A second one, slightly larger, can be used as a lid.

Time
About an hour

Materials
An old baking sheet
Tin foil
100% cotton cloth
Unwired beeswax foundation
Sunflower oil
A piece of string. Don’t ask how long.

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 100 degrees C;
2. Cover an old baking tray with tin foil – it needs to cover the base and go up over the sides with no holes or tears.
3. Tie up a length of string like a clothesline somewhere handy;
4. Cut some squares of cotton cloth – use pinking shears if possible to prevent fraying.  At about 10″x10″, my squares were a bit on the small side but there was just enough wax mixture for the 6. The size you use is up to you but they do need to be slightly smaller than the baking tray and the bigger they are of course, the more wax they will use;
5. Weigh 50 grams of unwired beeswax foundation and arrange it on the baking tray;
6. Sprinkle over 10 grams of sunflower oil;
7. Place the tray in the oven for 5 minutes or until wax has melted;
8. Take out the tray.  Give it a bit of a swirl to make sure the oil and wax are mixed then add your first cloth square;
9. Put the tray back into the oven for a couple of minutes;
10. Remove the tray and lay your second cloth square on top of the first – if there is space around the edges – off-set it slightly – aim to cover the whole baking sheet so the cotton can wick the wax out of the corners.
11. Then get hold of both squares together by one edge and turn them over so the fresh one is on the bottom. It shouldn’t be hot enought to burn you unless your oven thermostat is malfunctioning or you are a total wimp but be a bit careful about splattering wax everywhere.
12. Repeat steps 9 and 10 until all your squares are in the tin.
13. You will know when to stop because the wax will have been all used up and your last square will take time to get impregnated;
14. Remove the cloth squares one by one, hold aloft and gently waft for a few seconds then drape them over the string to set – it’ll only take a few minutes. If they start to stick together in the tin put it back in the oven for a bit.

Click here for how to render beeswax

Click here for more about beeswax

Click here for more recipes

Click here for how to fill your teeth with beeswax

Click here for more about pine resin or ‘rosin’

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Look no further than local honey!

As long as the honey is unpasteurised – or better still raw –  it will contain a dormant population of wild yeasts from your area. The bees are well aware of them. This is why they reduce the water content of honey to below 20%  –  so that the army of wild yeasts present in the honey are unable to metabolise it. But they haven’t gone away you know – they are just dormant – waiting for the chance to burst into life.

Temperature

Before you trigger them into action – a word of warning – yeasts are very temperature sensitive:

• If you apply heat much above 30 degrees you may kill them;
• Honey from the supermarket will have been deliberately heated to temperatures designed to kill. Any yeasts that were there will be dead.

Here’s how to make a sourdough starter from honey.

Starter Recipe

This recipe is from Richard Bertinet’s excellent book ‘Crust’.

Materials

• 20g local honey – preferably raw;
• 50g spelt flour;
• 150g strong white flour – preferably organic;
• 150g luke warm water – hot water will kill your yeasts so be careful.

Method

• Mix everything together till you have a soft dough;
• Put the bowl inside a plastic bag and put it into your warming cabinet for 36-48 hours at 30 degrees;
• Leave it alone – poking or stirring doesn’t help;
• After the allotted time you should find your dough is alive and bubbly;
• You are now ready to feed your creature;
• Add to it 30g spelt flour, 280g strong white flour and 150g luke warm water and mix well;
• Leave for another 24 hours at 24 degrees;
• Take 200g of your starter and add it to 400g strong white flour and 200g water;
• Leave for 12 hours at 24 degrees;
• Now put it in the fridge for 2 days – this will slow it down;
• After 2 days you are ready to bake!

Sourdough Recipe

Materials

• 200g of your starter;
• 45g spelt flour;
• 350g strong white flour;
• 325g water;
• 10g salt.

Method

• Mix everything together till you get a sloppy dough;
• Unless you are used to working with very wet doughs watch Richard Bertinet’s method here:

• Put the dough into a floured bowl for 1 hour;
• Fold the dough and put it back into the floured bowl for another hour;
• Repeat that step;
• Form the dough into a ball and set it into a well floured proving basket or ‘banneton’ for about 16 hours;
• Turn out onto a hot baking sheet, slash and bake for 30 minutes at 220 degrees or equivalent;
• You may have noticed that this seems to be a pretty wasteful process but it need not be – bake any surplus starter for your dog.

This bread makes the best toast in the world – sublime smothered in honey of course.

Click here for Richard Bertinet’s website

Click here for more beespoke honey recipes

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Ingredients

• 1 cinnamon stick
• 6 bruised cardamon pods
• 5 cloves
• 1 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 tbsp grated orange peel
• 0.5 tbsp grated lemon peel
• 4 thin slices of ginger
• 1.5lb mildly flavoured honey
• Juice of 2 small oranges with enough water to make 1 pint
• 1 pint Vodka

Method

1. Put the spices and sliced ginger with the orange juice and water into a stainless steel saucepan;
2. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes;
3. Add the orange and lemon peel and the honey;
4. Bring back to the boil then take off the heat and allow to steep for 15 minutes with the lid on;
5. Strain through muslin;
6. Add the Vodka;
7. Drink – rather nice hot but I think you are supposed to store it away for a bit.
8. Cheers!

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Ingredients

• 50mls gin
• 15mls lemon juice
• 10 mls honey
• 5 mls water

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together;
• Pour over 3 ice cubes;
•  Add a slice of lemon.

Repeat as necessary.

Of course if you have ivy honey – use that, as it is said to be especially good for colds and chesty coughs.

Cheers!

Click here for more recipes

Click here for more about ivy honey

Click here for how to get a crop of ivy honey

Click here for more about ivy as a bee tree

Ingredients

• 500g honey
• 30g of small red-hot chillis

Method

• Cut the tops off the chillis and chop them up – include the seeds;
• Stir the chopped chillis into the honey and warm it up to 40-50 degrees C and leave for about 10 minutes;
• If not hot enough, leave a bit longer or add more chilli;
• If too hot, remove chillis and add more honey;
• Strain through muslin or a fine sieve and Bob’s your uncle.

This is really good with grilled meats such as sausages or chicken and even pizza.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

First pre-heat oven to 170 degrees C  for a fan oven or 190 degrees for a conventional oven.

Ingredients

• 200g Porridge oats;
• 200g Jumbo oats;
• 100g Chopped almonds or walnuts;
• 100g Wheatgerm;
• 85g Desiccated coconut;
• 25g Sesame seeds;
• 50g Sunflower seeds;
• 150ml Local honey;
• 90ml Hot water;
• 150ml Sunflower oil;
• 1 tsp Vanilla essence;
• 0.5 tsp Salt;
• 50g Pumpkin seeds.

Method

1. Combine the first 7 ingredients in a large bowl;
2. Mix together the honey, the hot water and the salt in a jug or other bowl then whisk in the oil and the vanilla essence;
3. Pour the honey/oil mixture into the oats etc and stir together well;
4. Spread the lot into a large roasting tin;
5. Place into the centre of the pre-heated oven and cook for about 45 minutes or until golden in colour;
6. Note – you will need to stir this regularly to prevent scorching – particularly towards the end of the cooking time;
7. Stir the pumpkin seeds through the mixture while still hot;
8. Allow to cool completely before storing in one of those airtight plastic tubs.

Click here for more about Cooking with Honey

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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.

Ingredients

• 300g Soya Flour
• 100g Brewers Yeast
• 100g Skimmed Milk Powder
• 1kg honey

Method

• Mix together all the dry ingredient;
• Warm the honey just enough to make it easier to mix;
• Pour the honey into the dry ingredients and mix it all together into a stiff paste;
• Shape it up into patties slim enough to fit beneath the crownboad;
• Place each patty on a square of oiled greaseproof paper and stack them into a poly box or similar.

This quantity would make about a dozen patties.

To feed the bees – place the patty directly onto the bees underneath the crownboard. Leave the paper in place to stop it drying out.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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.

When mixed with water it gets hot and when you then mix that solution with a mixture of fats and oils you get a very strong chemical reaction during which more heat is produced and the end result is soap.

Then there’s the beeswax. Beeswax, as we know, is about the most recalcitrant substance known to man so don’t spill that either. It is also flammable – click here for more beeswax facts. Its effects on soap and the making of it, even in tiny quantities are profound.

For a start, in order to melt the beeswax you have to heat the oils much hotter than you normally would. Then, even a 1% addition of beeswax will cause the soap to thicken very quickly. If you are an experienced soap maker you will have gathered I am not! Nevertheless, here is a recipe for beeswax soap I’ve concocted – it works, it makes a lovely sudsy soap and I’m still here to tell the tale.

Ingredients

•  65g NaOH (Caustic Soda),
• 116g Water;
• 70g Olive oil;
• 263g Coconut oil;
• 112g Sunflower oil;
• 10g clean, grated Beeswax;
• 2 tsp Lavender oil.

Method

1. Put beeswax, sunflower, olive and coconut oils in a pan and heat very gently till the beeswax has melted;
2. Weigh the water and put it in a pyrex jug or similar;
3. Get your rubber gloves on;
4. Carefully weigh caustic soda;
5. Carefully pour the caustic soda into the jug with the water and stir with the butt end of a wooden spoon – get all the grains aloft and swirling then put the jug somewhere safe and leave it alone;
6. Grease your soap mould – such as an old loaf tin – with a lump of coconut oil;
7. Get your hand blender ready;
8. When the beeswax has melted, stir the oils with a spatula just to get them well mixed;
9. Allow the mixture to cool a little, you can stand it in water bath or just let it cool naturally, till you see it beginning to congeal on the base of the pan;
10. Pour in the caustic soda/water mixture and stir gently (with the mixer turned off) then add your lavender;
11. Now turn the mixer on and give it what-for. It should turn a nice golden colour and start to thicken;
12. When it looks like a cake batter, pour it into your soap mould;
13. Wrap the whole thing in clingfilm and old towels to keep the heat in and leave it till it’s set;

Once set and still a bit warm turn it out of the mould and cut it up into bars. If yours is like mine you will notice that the lovely golden colour has gone away and the soap is now a warm ivory.

If you are unsure of what quantities of ingredients to use, there are several online resources for soapmakers. soapcalc.net has an online soap calculator which allows you to add in your oil ingredients and water as percentages of the total oils and it will give you the correct amount of caustic soda to use.

The table below shows the output when I input the oils and beeswax in my recipe above.  The pink row (Lye – NaOH) shows the amount of Caustic Soda to use.

Click here to go to the soapcalc soap calculator

Click here for simple beeswax wraps

Click here for how to render beeswax

Click here for beeswax facts

Click here for beeswax lipbalm recipe

Click here for beeswax handcream recipe

Click here for beeswax furniture polish recipe

Click here for beeswax soap recipe

Click here for beeswax candlemaking

Click here for emergency home  dental repairs with beeswax

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