Recipes | Beespoke Info

Honey with Gin Innit

Gimlet — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 18:37:39 +0000

Here’s a honey recipe to help you forget your cold or flu or whatever it is that ails you.

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

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Chilli Honey Recipe

Gimlet — Sat, 16 May 2015 21:26:09 +0000

Here’s a recipe that’ll blow your socks off but you’ll need really hot chillis for this, not those namby-pamby, supermarket chillis.

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.

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How to make Soft-Set or ‘Creamed’ Honey

Gimlet — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 17:02:47 +0000

This is easy:

When you extract your honey make sure you strain your honey well and keep it as clean as possible;
Set it aside to granulate. 14°C is the best temperature for this
When your honey has granulated pick out those buckets with a good fine grain and set them aside;
Carefully scrape the fine debris off the top of the honey that you are ready to process. Wear your glasses for this bit;
Put the buckets into your warming cabinet at 30°C for 48 hours;
At this point the honey should be soft but not liquid, although there may be a little runny honey round the edges and that’s ok. If it is still a bit solid in the middle, give it another few hours at 35°C;
Get a clean wooden spoon and stir the honey to get it mobile – it should be like thick porridge;
Pour the honey into your bottler but be prepared to leave a little honey in the bucket. There can be little black bits down there no matter how carefully you strained it so keep that and add it to your run honey then you can strain it;
Give it a good stirring to remove lumps;
Bottle the honey immediately – if you let it cool it’ll stiffen up in the bottler.
Always keep about 3lb of soft set honey in case you need if for seed.
Put the jars somewhere cool (14°C ) for a week to stiffen up a bit.

If you have no buckets of honey that have set with that nice fine grain then you must seed it. Here’s how:

Put your bucket or buckets to be seeded into your warming cabinet at 40°C for 24 hours then turn it up to 45 for another 12 hours or until all crystals are dissolved;
Fine-strain the honey into your bottler and allow it to cool for a couple of hours or to about 30°C;
While it is cooling put your jars of ‘seed’ into your bottler at 30°C to soften a little bit. These are jars of honey that has set with a lovely fine grain. You will need at least 10% seed so 3lb for a 30lb bucket
When the honey in your bottler has cooled add your seed and stir it well;
Run the honey off into a clean bucket or buckets and leave to set. It will now set with the same grain you seeded it with;
Once set – proceed as above.

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Honey Toasted Muesli/Granola Recipe

Gimlet — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 12:07:01 +0000

Try this recipe for a lovely healthy Beekeeper’s Breakfast. Delicious with yogurt, fresh fruit and more honey!

Serving Suggestion – Moosli

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

Combine the first 7 ingredients in a large bowl;
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;
Pour the honey/oil mixture into the oats etc and stir together well;
Spread the lot into a large roasting tin;
Place into the centre of the pre-heated oven and cook for about 45 minutes or until golden in colour;
Note – you will need to stir this regularly to prevent scorching – particularly towards the end of the cooking time;
Stir the pumpkin seeds through the mixture while still hot;
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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Beeswax Furniture Polish Recipe

Gimlet — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 17:48:20 +0000

Polish up yer wooden stuff with this stuff – it’s something to do with your beeswax mountain and it makes a great present for the mid-winter too.

Only use genuine turpentine – it’s expensive but it smells lovely. Don’t be tempted to use white spirit in place of turpentine or it will smell horrible. Do remember turpentine is an extremely volatile substance – keep well away from naked flames and work in a well ventilated room.

Beeswax is also very flammable so don’t get that near naked flames either.

Just be careful and don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Carnauba wax is a hard wax of plant origin which will help make the shine last longer. It is available from beekeeping suppliers such as Thornes.

Ingredients:

8oz clean beeswax
1oz carnauba wax
1pt pure turpentine

Method:

Melt the waxes together in double saucepan/waterbath;
Warm the turpentine;
Pour the turpentine into the melted wax;
Stir and pour into pots or tins.

Click here for beeswax facts

Click here for a simple way to make beeswax wraps

Click here for beeswax lipbalm recipe

Click here for beeswax handcream recipe

Click here for beeswax soap recipe

Click here for beeswax candlemaking

Click here for home dentistry with beeswax

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Honey Marmalade Recipe

Gimlet — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 14:55:52 +0000

Mid-winter is the time to be thinking of marmalade.

If nothing else it’ll take your mind off that other old rubbish that happens towards the end of December.

Organic Seville Oranges

Seville oranges are in season from December to February so you’ve plenty of time to be thinking about it. If you have some indifferent honey you’d like to use up, here’s a good target – oranges and honey together develop a superb depth of flavour.

Click here for more on cooking with honey and honey in preserves

The thing to remember about making marmalade, or any other type of jam, is that – it won’t set till you have evaporated off enough water to allow it to reach 105 degrees C. There are two ways to achieve this – the quick way where you boil it like mad or the slow way where you just let it bubble away for a while – either way will get you there but marmalade seems to benefit from going the long way round.

Pressure cooking allows you to use the minimum of water… and time for that matter.

Ingredients

1kg Seville oranges preferable the same size and skin-texture – try to choose smooth skinned fruits – the knobbly ones have skins that seem never to soften;
500ml water;
2.4kg Honey

Method

Scrub the fruit;
Pressure cook the oranges with the water at full pressure for 15 minutes;
Put the honey to warm gently – just enough so you can strain it if it needs it;
Remove oranges from the liquor and allow to cool so you can handle them without scalding yourself. The skins should be so soft your fingers go right though if you pinch them. If not, cook a bit longer;
Cut each orange in half, scoop out innards – pips, pulp and everything (the liver, the lights and the gall and all) – and set the peels aside. Put the pips and pulp back in with the liquor;
Bring back to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes;
Meanwhile slice up the cooked peel and put into a large pan;
Run contents of pips and pulp through jelly bag into the pan with the shredded peel in it;
Squeeze jelly bag till pips squeak and all pectin is removed – it should gather on your fingers as a thick yellowish paste – keep squeezing till there isn’t any more. Make sure your hands are nice and clean before you start this because, like making pastry, they will be very clean when you’ve finished!
Remove pips and membranes from jelly bag then run the warmed honey through jelly bag to join with shredded peel, pectin and strained liquor;
Bring to the boil and boil hard for 10 minutes then test for setting point;
Alternatively let it simmer for a couple of hours but keep an eye on it;
Either way, be careful not to pass the setting point and over-cook it or you will destroy the pectin and it will never set;
Meanwhile put the jars into the oven at 120 for about 12 minutes;
When setting point is reached, allow marmalade to cool for about 10 minutes before bottling or all the little bits of peel will rise to the top instead of being nicely distributed throughout the jar.

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Honey and Blackcurrant Wine Recipe

Gimlet — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 10:06:49 +0000

Mead flavoured with fruit is known as Melomel. I’ve got 6 blackcurrant bushes in my garden; I planted them in 2004 as cuttings. Each year now, in July I make between 10 and 30 gallons of wine from the currants they give me. Instead of sugar I use some horrible honey I bought in haste – I’m drinking my mistake. If you’re out there Frank – you know who you are – cheers!

If you have a wine hydrometer, you won’t need me to tell you how to use it and you can be more precise about how much honey you want to add.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

3lb blackcurrants
3.5lb honey
1 gallon water
Red wine yeast and nutrient
Pectic enzyme

Method

Mash the fruit in food grade plastic bucket. Do not use metal – I use a plastic bottle full of water as a pestle;
Boil honey and water in a large pan, remove scum and pour still boiling over the fruit;
Cover with a cloth;
When cooled to blood heat add pectic enzyme as per instructions on container and leave for a day;
Next day add the wine yeast and yeast nutrient, stir and cover;
Keep covered in a warm place, stirring once per day, for 5 days;
Strain into a demi-john, fit airlock and leave till it stops fermenting and wine clears;
Syphon off sediment into a clean jar;
Drink it.

Cheers!

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Hair today…

Gimlet — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 11:41:12 +0000

… gone tomorrow.

Flyaway hair? Try this recipe I found this morning. It takes minutes to prepare and will hold the most stubborn hair in place.

Ingredients

15 grams grated beeswax
4 teaspoons coconut oil

Method

melt the beeswax in a glass jar or bowl over a pan of hot water;
when melted – add the coconut oil;
when that too has melted – stir well and pour into a shallow jar;
If you want to add fragrance – cool slightly and stir it in just before bottling.

To use, scrape a little out with a teaspoon – or a fingernail if you’ve got one of those long curved ones. Spread it out over your fingertips then rub it through your mad hair.

PS If you don’t like the consistency you can always melt it down and add more beeswax or coconut or fry an egg in it.

Get it down you – it’ll put hairs on yer chest.

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