Cooking With Honey – Honey Grapefruit Margarita

grapefruit margarita

With the weather heating up, this is a delicious way to cool down!  The honey and the grapefruit combine wonderfully.

Yield:  2 servings

Ingredients

3 oz tequila

2 oz orange liqueur

2 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice (2 limes)

6 oz fresh-squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice (1 grapefruit)

Simple honey syrup, to taste

Salt, for rim

Grapefruit wedges, for serving (optional)

Directions

Mix tequila, orange liqueur, lime, and grapefruit juices well. Add a generous splash of simple honey syrup. (To make simple honey syrup combine equal parts honey and water and heat until honey is completely dissolved. Refrigerate after cooling to save.)

Rub one of the used lime or grapefruit rinds around the rim of two glasses and dip in cocktail salt.

Fill each glass with ice and pour in the margarita.

  • Paloma (moderndayforager.wordpress.com)

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – May 15, 2013

Foxglove, Hosta, and Clematis are the stars of my garden in May!

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  • Clematis (asurreygarden.wordpress.com)

Beautiful Beekeeping – The Beehive Inn

The "Living Sign" outside The Beehive Inn

The “Living Sign” outside The Beehive Inn

You may enjoy unique honey for tea when you visit The Beehive Inn in Castlegate at Grantham in Lincolnshire, UK.  The honey comes from the Inn’s “living sign” – a beehive.

Since 1830, the beehive has hung in a tree outside the Inn.  Its bees produce an average of 30lbs of honey every year!

beehive inn

A sign on the Inn reads :

” Stop traveller this wondrous sign to explore and say when thou hast view’d it o’er and o’er.

Grantham now two rarities are thine, A lofty steeple and a living sign.”

The lofty steeple is that of St Wulfram’s church, 272ft high, at the end of the street.

Beautiful Beekeeping – If It Isn’t Broken…

About a decade ago I started beekeeping.  I followed the instructions in Beekeeping for Dummies and used wired wax foundation. Everything worked beautifully.

Wired Wax Foundation

Wired Wax Foundation

My bees loved the wax foundation. The colony built up quickly. It was easy to extract the honey.  So why didn’t I leave well enough alone?

The answer is I’m kind of lazy. Wax frames are very labor intensive. I have to assemble the wooden frames (using a hammer and nails!) and carefully fit the delicate wax inside it without tearing it. Pre-assembled plastic frames are much easier to use.

Pre-assembled Plastic Foundation

Pre-assembled Plastic Foundation

Last year I noticed that my hive with plastic frames wasn’t building up as quickly as my old hive had. Of course, I blamed it on my bees.

This year was worse!  My new bees completely refused to build comb on the plastic frames and built inside the roof top feeders instead!!   I spent Tuesday afternoon cleaning burr comb out of the feeders and replacing plastic frames with wax ones…

Feeders full of burr comb...

Feeders full of burr comb…

The good news is that I’m pretty sure my bees are okay, no thanks to me.

I’ve heard that some bees prefer the plastic frames, but not mine. From now on, I’m going to stick with what works. If it isn’t broken, I’m not going to try to fix it!

Cooking With Honey – Honeycomb Pull Apart Cake

Reblogged from Chronicles of a Beekeeper Wife

Honeycomb Pull Apart Cake

Honeycomb cake image

Do you have some special people coming over, a birthday celebration, or maybe you are going to your annual beekeepers’ potluck? You’ll do no wrong by serving this conversational piece. It is easy to make and fun to serve. The honey lemon glaze is especially tasty, and on a hot summer day, I suggest serving alongside a scoop of lemon sorbet or Italian ice. Either way, serving up this honeycomb cake is going to be a hit at your next gathering!

Prep
You’ll need to purchase this Honeycomb novelty pan. It is made by Nordic Ware (very high quality heavy cast aluminum construction). Mine was purchased onsite at the King Arthur Flour Bake Store in Norwich, VT; however, I don’t see it in their online store. The good news is that Williams-Sonoma and Amazon currently sell it.

honeycomb cake pan image
Front side
honeycomb cake pan image
Batter side

You’ll need to pick up several ingredients if you don’t already have them in your pantry.

honeycomb cake ingredients image
Love using local ingredients whenever possible!

Below is the recipe that came with the cake pan.*

Honey Lemon Cake
3 cups cake flour (I used King Arthur Cake Flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened (I used Cabot)
4 eggs
2 Tbsp finely grated lemon rind (I needed 2 large lemons)
1 cup sour cream (I used Cabot)

Glaze
3 Tbsp Honey (I used Heavenly Honey Apiary)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice (I only needed 1 lemon to get this)

Directions
Heat oven to 325° F. Grease and flour pan; set aside.

Tip:  Really get into each cell and side of pan. I used a pastry brush with liquid vegetable oil and floured liberally and tapped it all around and then tapped the excess into the sink.

In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar on low speed until blended. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.

Creamed butter and sugar

Add eggs and beat until well blended.

Honeycomb cake batter image
beating honeycomb cake batter image

Add fl0ur mixture, sour cream and lemon rind; blend on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl often. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes.

Grater and lemons with zest
Honeycomb cake batter image

Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Tip: I folded a kitchen hand towel in half and placed it on the kitchen counter. I then gently tapped the cake pan with the batter in it, to make sure that the batter settled into the crevice of each honeycomb cell.

Honeycomb cake going into oven image
See the over rack above pan? It’s too low. Raise it or take out.

Bake for 45-55 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan.

Tip: Don’t over bake, although I kept a very close eye on the baking, and I took it out as soon as the toothpick came out clean, I thought the outer edge pieces resembled a plain donut texture and the middle pieces were moister. 

Meanwhile, make glaze: in small saucepan, combine all glaze ingredients and heat over medium heat until sugar dissolves and glaze is warm.

Honey Lemon Glaze image
Honey lemon glaze
Honeycomb cake out of oven image
Gently run knife around edge
honeycomb cake thickness image
Bakes to high volume. Be mindful of oven rack placement.

Invert cake onto cooling rack and brush with honey glaze.

honeycomb pull apart cake cooling on rack image
Placed wax paper underneath in preparation for glaze.
glazing honeycomb pull apart cake image
I gingerly brushed ample glaze on each honeycomb cell.
dirty honeycomb cake pan image
This was the pan after inverting — Cleanup a cinch!
Tip: After glazing, I let the cake thoroughly cool for about 2 hours before I plated it, because the underside of the cake was still really warm to the touch. 

Place on a decorative plate and serve!

finished Honeycomb pull apart cake image

*I don’t see a copyright notice on the packaging so I’m sharing.

English Cottage Gardening – Planting Mt. Everest

My back garden is, well, it’s very steep. I twist my ankle every time I take a stroll in it. I call it Mt. Everest.

Mt. Everest aka my back garden

Mt. Everest aka my back garden

I have some nice David Austin rose bushes planted in the border, but this year my gardening goal is to make a beautiful Gertrude Jekyll-style border for my bees who live at the bottom.

Bees at the Bottom of the Garden

Bees at the Bottom of the Garden

So far I’ve planted lots of lavender and some lambs’ ears. Today I’m planting nepeta and lilies. I’m thinking about buying golf shoes to garden in.

To keep myself motivated, I’ll post the progress of my border throughout the rest of the season. Wish me luck!!

Deb

May Morning In Oxford

May Morning is an annual event in Oxford, England, on May Day (1 May). It starts early at 6am with the Magdalen College Choir singing a hymn, the Hymnus Eucharisticus, from the top of Magdalen Tower, a tradition of over 500 years. Large crowds normally gather under the tower along the High Street and on Magdalen Bridge. This is then followed by general revelry and festivities including Morris dancing, impromptu music, etc., for a couple of hours. There is a party atmosphere, despite the early hour. In fact, there are normally all-night balls the night before, so some people (especially students) are in formal attire (e.g., black tie/white tie or ball gown).

Cooking With Honey – Butterfly Honey Spread

ambrosia

This is a simple yet delicious way to prepare a honey-based spread.  In a pretty jar, it makes a wonderful gift!

Ingredients

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups honey

3 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

Directions

In a sauce pan combine cream and honey. Heat on medium-high heat and stir until the honey is melted and completely combined with the cream, about 2-4 minutes.

Pour the hot mixture over the butter and mix until blended, either by hand or machine. Add vanilla and blend again. Pour mixture into a container, cover and let cool in the refrigerator. Keep refrigerated.

Serve on warm bread, toast, oatmeal, pancakes, or anything else!