Order before midnight on Monday the 21st of December and receive your parcel by courier before Christmas Eve. Orders after the 22nd won't be sent out till the 5th of January.
The last Saturday before Christmas
Come down to our Bermondsey warehouse this Saturday for your last change to buy mead directly from us retail, as we only have a temporary retail licence, and to pick up gifts and candles. See the map of where we are here. Open 10am till 2pm.
Struffoli: Bea Vo's Italian donut recipe, from Steve's book.
Struffoli
Tis the season to entertain family and friends and feed them treats. Bea Vo, the owner of Bea's of Bloomsbury was kind enough to give us her recipe for struffoli as part of Steve's book, The Urban Beekeeper: A Year of Bees in the City. Bea's commercial bakery is in Bermondsey, which is how we know her - it's conveniently close for us to drop honey to and pick up some cakes. Struffoli is Bea's "favourite fried donut treat' , a traditional Italian sweet and works well with London Honey. It's a festive feeling recipe with citrus zest and boozy rum. The ingredients are listed below, straight off of p16 of the book.
How to make struffoli
Mix the flour, orange and lemon zest, paprika and salt. To do it the old traditional way, dump the flour on the counter and create a small well. Fill with eggs and 1 tablespoon rum. Incorporate with hands until you get a nice smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and place in refrigerator for one hour.
Separate the dough into quarters and roll each into a long rope about 1 inch thick. Cut into small 1/2-inch pieces like gnocchi.
Heat the oil in pan until it reaches 190 degrees C. Drop the balls in a few at a time until they turn nicely golden and puffy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
In a wide pot, add the honey, orange juice and a shot of rum, and heat over a medium heat until it's quite warm and the honey thin. Add the doughnut pieces to the honey mixture, and stir until well coated. Remove from the heat and let the sauce cool in the pan, stirring constantly to keep the honey coating even.
Pour onto a nice plate and dust with icing sugar on top.
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
Our tips on matching cheeses and honey
for your festive table
Honey and cheese is a winning combination of two beautiful foods which together are more than the sum of their parts. Some honeys work better with some cheeses than others. Here's our guide to choosing honey for your cheese course this Christmas.
Nutty cheeses go well with rich bitter sweet Ling heather honey. Try Parmigiano Reggiano, a good quality cheddar such as Keen's, alpine cheeses (think Comté, Gruyère) or Nic one of our beekeepers recommends Pecorino Sardo. The sweetness balances the saltiness well. Serve squares of cheese with honeycomb on top as a canapé.
Sweet and creamy fresh cheeses such as ricotta or goats curd go well with herby honeys such as Woodsage, which is currently only available in our Saturday warehouse shop .
Piquant blues suchas Gorgonzola or Roquefort work wonderfully well with a drizzle of honey but go for a subtle honey such as Borage so as not to clash with these strong charactered cheeses.
The wonderful La Fromagerie matched cheeses with our mead for our launch party. Check out their recommendations on our blog. You can buy our mead at our warehouse on Saturdays till Christmas or online from the Whisky Exchange and Fortnum and Mason or from other stockists.
Get stocked up on candles and honey ready for Christmas. We particularly like to useheather honey on our Christmas ham as it has a wonderful caramel like taste with bitter notes.
You can now buy our mead online from the Whisky Exchange and Fortnum and Mason , as well as from our warehouse on Saturdays till Christmas. Perfect straight or in cocktails, try this festive cocktail with cloves as suggested in an article about our mead by BarLifeUK
The Monkey’s Banquet 30ml Monkey Shoulder or another whisky 2 cloves 20ml lemon juice 10ml borage honey or sugar syrup 10ml white wine Shaken and served over cubed ice in a highball Topped with mead
