I'm not dead

I know. I know. You thought this was all over, didn’t you? I don’t even have a decent excuse. In fact, that’s partly why it’s taken me a while to start up again - it got to the point where I’d left it so long that to just start posting without an explanation would have been out of the question, and since I couldn’t justify myself I ignored the problem for even longer. Well, I'm ready to move on. Let’s get back to business, shall we?

Apple and Honey Tart

A couple of years ago my Dad announced that he was going to start keeping bees. ‘Bees?’ says I. ‘Yes. Bees.’ says he. ‘Huh. Bees. Interesting.’ I say, in my usual eloquent fashion, ‘Any particular reason you want to keep bees?’ (a reasonable question, I think you’ll agree) ‘I just like bees’ says he. ‘I’ve always wanted to keep bees, and now I’m going to keep bees’. And so it was settled, and Dad got his bees.

To be fair, they’re much less swarm-y than I anticipated. I can’t say that my parents have always emerged unscathed; Dad recently received six stings to one hand just before we all trotted off to the reception of my cousin’s wedding. Over the course of the evening it swelled to two or three time its usual size, necessitating an occasional plunge into an ice bucket and making his other hand look positively Beadle-ish in comparison. On the whole, though, the bees are mostly well behaved. Mostly.

There was a fairly modest crop of honey last year, but they’ve really gone to town this summer. Last time I visited everything on the ground floor smelled of honey to the point where even the air felt a little tacky. Frames of comb were piled high, honey was being strained and wax was being melted. Do you know of much you can do with beeswax apart from candles and lip balms? Mum would like to know.

At the moment they have three batches of honey, labelled as batches 1, 2 and 3. It’s really very organised. 1 is very clear and has quite a high liquid content so is very runny. It’s wildcomb honey made outside of the frames in the hive by the maverick bees who just don’t play by the rules, so naturally I will call this batch Riggs. The other two batches are from each of the two hives. 2 is runny and very much like Riggs, but made in a more traditional manner. I have named it Murtough. 3 is much thicker than the other two – not set, but almost chewy. This one is called Pesci (I forget the name of the character Joe Pesci played, and I’m not going to look it up).

Riggs is nice but I decided to just have pots of Murtough and Pesci for now. Murtough is good for drizzling, eating on bread, or mixing into cocktails (more on this another time). Pesci is great to cook with as it’s so thick. It’ll caramelise easily as a marinade for meats, and won’t mess up the ratios of other ingredients too much if you stick it in a cake.

I picked up my latest pots of honey on the same weekend as Pete and I also visited his parents, where his father was good enough to give me some figs from their garden and apples that were definitely not scrumped from their neighbour. I baked the figs with Pesci and some mixed spice, and lovely they were too. The best bit was the thick syrup that collected at the bottom of the dish, and I figured this might work well in a tart type scenario. Plus I already had the apples…

I must admit, my first effort was not a resounding success. I had forgotten to factor in the detail that apples would produce a lot more juice than figs, so combining them with honey made a rather soggy tart. It did, however, taste very nice indeed – the sharp fruit and floral honey are great together. I had meant to add cinnamon as well but forgot, and it’s just as well as it really doesn’t need anything else. For my second attempt I took inspiration from treacle tarts and added breadcrumbs to soak up the excess, and this worked perfectly. Recipe below:

To make a tart 8” in diameter:

Pastry: 100g plain flour
50g butter
1-2 tbsp icing sugar
A dash of ice cold water

Filling: 2 medium sized apples (the apples I used were cookers but held their shape much more firmly than Bramleys usually do, so sharp eating apples are probably best)
3-4 large tbsps thick honey
30-40g white breadcrumbs.

Make the pastry as described here, and blind bake it for about 15min at GM 6 or 200C. While it is in the oven core and chop the apples into small pieces, and mix the honey with the breadcrumbs. When the pastry begins to brown around the edge remove the case from the oven and pour in the honey and breadcrumb mix, spreading evenly over the base. Add the apples on top and pack the fruit down. Drizzle a little extra honey over the top and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes. Leave to cool slightly to allow it to set. Serve warm or cold.