Rummaging through my “brewing bag of tricks” that has been sadly neglected over the past couple of years I was delighted to find this hand written sheet, given to me by my Homebrew Guru, Richard Burns – Proprietor of Cheers Winemaking and Brewing North Cheam, which gives the method used and lists ingredients for making elderflower cordial.

By mid June any remaining elderflowers were due to quickly disappear and a forecast of poor weather meant time was of the essence to gather the required number of elderflower heads and a furtive trip around the hedgerows of Bovey Tracey delivered the dusty elderflower scented of frothy blooms needed to make this classic summer cordial

For this recipe it suggests:

• 20 – 30 Elderflower Heads – collect on warm still sunny day before it gets too hot. (Snip off heavy green stalks)
• 3 pints cold water (maybe warm this through to help dissolve all that sugar)
• 2 ½ to 3 lb sugar (depending on your taste)
• 50 grams Tartaric Acid
• 1 0r 2 unwaxed lemons – zested then thinly sliced

Three steps to make elderflower cordial

1. Mix all together in plastic bucket
2. Leave 24 to 48 hours stirring now and then
3. Strain into bottles

The cordial is ready to use immediately but will freeze in suitable containers.

What I love about this recipe is the vague quantities and the apologies for hand writing that is typical of Richard.

CHEERS!

Here’s a nice looking shandy that uses elderflower cordial.

And here is a video that sort of follows the method of making elderflower cordial above:

Pasty Association backs EU

The Cornish Pasty Association (CPA) has come out in support of Britain remaining in the European Union.

The association, made up of Cornish Pasty producers of all crusts and sizes from across Cornwall, has been asked numerous times about the impact of a possible exit from the EU on the protection of the Cornish Pasty name.

The CPA’s board recently decided that, after working so hard for so many years to gain recognition for the Cornish Pasty through the EU Protected Food Names scheme, it would be wholly inappropriate for it to support anything that could potentially impact on that status.

Speaking on behalf of the CPA, chairman, Jason Jobling, said: “As an organisation that has benefitted from the EU protected food names system, and no clear evidence available to demonstrate that Brexit would enable that protection to continue, the CPA supports Britain remaining in the EU and being able to participate in that system.

You can make your wedding even more memorable by giving your special day a brilliant regional theme. It’s all about finding things that fit in with your ideas whilst still pleasing your guests. Whether it’s choosing the right music or covering special dietary needs for wedding guests, such as those fuss pots with “allergies” or health conscious zealots who require low cholesterol dishes (find out more about cholesterol levels here), it’s easy to do with the right planning.

A great way to make your wedding unique is to choose a regional theme.

Working from South to North….here are three ideas to inspire you:

Cornish Themed Wedding – Get on My Lovers!

A Cornish themed wedding is bound to be great fun. Traditional music played by a live band will set the wedding theme and you could always search for a willing wedding band and ask that the members dress up as pirates, the Master of Ceremonies kitted out in full Poldark regalia, and the bridesmaids in Cornish fishwife dresses.

Search online agents and listings to find the perfect band – for example Wedding Lovely recommends using Entertainers Worldwide Directory to find wedding bands that like these me-heartys who are prepared to join in the fun of the Cornish theme.

YARR! – Wedding Band Dressed in Pirate Costumes

Of course, you can scale it down a little (geddit?) if you like! Food wise, Cornwall’s coastline has a bounty of some of the finest seafood in the nation, including crab, lobster and turbot.

No Cornish themed wedding would be complete without a nod to the region’s most beloved treat

Then of course you have the pasty, and no Cornish themed wedding would be complete without a nod to the region’s most beloved treat.

It has been said that the happiness of the marriage can often be judged on the agreement between partners on the choice of crust – flakey or short – it matters not so long as there is total agreement on this essential part of the marital pasty unity.

There will always be those that want to show of and a perfect way to do this would be to order up a whole heap from the Proper Posh Pasty Co  and have them delivered directly to your evening event. ALWAYS OVER ORDER – guest will be keen to take a little memento home with them and a freshly baked pasty tucked into a jacket pocket will be a delightful treat later on when re-heated or indeed noshed cold.

For dessert how about delving into Guldize topped with clotted cream?

Pre drinks nibbles? Lusty Pirate Crisps of course.

Welsh themed wedding:

If you’re going to go Welsh, filling your room with daffodils and using traditional love spoons as wedding favours will give your day an authentic edge. When it comes to the tunes, Wales has a long history of celebrating folk music, perfect for an evening twmpath (similar to an Irish ceilidh where you switch partners and a caller will give instructions on how to dance).

In terms of feeding your guests, you can continue the traditional feel with laverbread, Welsh cakes and a delicious Welsh cawl stew, based around beautiful Welsh lamb, of course.

Scottish themed wedding:

Images of male guests dancing around in kilts immediately spring to mind, but there’s so much you can do with a wedding paying homage to Scotland. Traditional bagpipe and clarsach (Scottish harp) music, tartan tablecloths and a castle setting can all make for a truly elegant Scottish wedding. In terms of food, dishes like cullen skink (a thick soup of smoked haddock, potatoes and onions), Highland roaming roe deer and stunning diver-caught scallops are all tasty options. Some of the best salmon is available in Scotland, too, and it makes a really grand centrepiece for your wedding meal. Not only does a whole salmon look amazing, it is lower in cholesterol than fatty meats.

For those less concerned about the waistline and dietary health there is always the chance of a platter of deep-fried Mars bars for an amuse bouche at a Scottish event.

And how about this for a novelty wedding cake idea – Irn Bru Cup Cakes – yes!

As with solar panels, subsidy payments will be based on how much energy you generate, with a proposed rate of 5.2p-8.7p per kilowatt hour (kWh) in the case of a biomass boiler. Yet the payments will be much more concentrated — into a period of just seven years, compared with 20-25 years for solar. Factoring in fuel savings, many who have installed a renewable energy system calculate that it will pay for itself in only five years.

The RHI, which came into force for domestic installation in April 2014, will be available for several forms of green heating. Biomass boilers — fired by wood chips or pellets — will be eligible, as will ground-source and air-source heat pumps. These work on the same principle as a fridge or air-conditioning, except that they are installed in reverse, to raise the temperature rather than lower it. A ground-source heat pump transfers energy from the earth via a length of underground pipe; an air-source system, as its name suggests, extracts heat from the air.

Alternative to Oil – Green Renewable Energy – Mitigating Climate Change

All of this is particularly attractive to properties in “off gas” areas such as rural Devon and Dartmoor where the incentives and benefits of switching to green, renewable energy for their heating and hot water suppy which currently is mostly provided by oil-fired boilers therby mitigating their contibution to cliamate change.

Payback times under the RHI could be short compared with those for solar power. According to an established renewable energy business that installs heat pumps in Devon, an air-source unit costing €6,5 K could generate payments of €2,660 a year. Yet energy from a heat pump, unlike that from solar panels, is not free: the pump consumes large amounts of electricity. Replace your oil boiler with one and you will be swapping an oil bill for higher electricity bills. Whether that makes sense depends on the relative costs of oil and electricity over the next few years, which are impossible to predict.

Renewable Energy in Devon – Case Studies

One happy customer is Henry Onker, the owner of a 17th Century granite built hotel, restauarant and pub on Dartmoor. Three years ago, he replaced his Devon country house hotel’s oil-fired boiler with a ground-source heat pump that extracts heat stored below the surface of the grounds. The system, installed by a Microgeneration Certificatation Scheme (MCS) approved installer cost €185,000, some of which was covered by a listed-building grant. He says his heating bills went down from €80,000 to €14,000 a year.

It is worth noting that you must choose a renewable energy installer who is MCS accredited in order to qualify for any RHI payments.

A ground-source heat pump would not have been practical for Tarquin and Zara at their four-bedroom home in Chagford, also in Devon — it would require as much space as a tennis court — but they are delighted with the €10,000 air-source system installed last year. They were burning 2,000 litres of heating oil a year, at a cost of €1,200. They no longer have an oil bill, but do have a larger electricity bill. Nevertheless, they calculate that operating the heat pump has cost him only €500 in electricity — resulting in a net saving of €700 a year on fuel.  They are now looking at lowering the electricty costs if an alternative source of green electricity is used – solar pv or wind turbines serve rural areas of Devon very well. Many specialist companies that promote renewable energy in Devon are able to design, supply and maintain an integrated system that includes a heat pump, underfloor heating and solar pv panels for additional electricity from renewable sources.

Underfloor Heating

The standard advice about air-source heat pumps is that they work better with underfloor heating than with radiators: the pumps run less efficiently at the higher water temperatures required by the latter.

The above image shows and underfloor heating installation project.  These are especially efficient ways to heat a home when using renewable energy from heat pumps.

Not all heat pumps installed in British homes have proved as satisfactory. A study conducted by the Energy Saving Trust in 2010 monitored 83 installations of ground- and air-source heat pumps for a year. It found that in 80% of cases, the ratio of heat produced to electricity consumed was less than 2.6 — the level at which a heat pump qualifies as a renewable source of energy under the EU Renewable Energy Directive.

The worst case — an air-source heat pump feeding a radiator central-heating system — had an efficiency rating of only 1.2, which meant it was using almost as much electricity as heating the property with electric fires would have consumed. The study blamed poor design and shoddy installation, with the work often carried out by contractors who did not properly understand the systems.

For anyone worried about ditching their boiler, the RHI would allow householders installing heat pumps to retain their old system as a backup. Still, given that this a relatively new technology in Britain, switching to a heat pump may still strike a lot of homeowners, especially those in older properties, as a bit of a gamble — even with some strong encouragement from the government.

Nicki Williams is a content editor and blogger and has spent many a day hiking on the Dartmoor trails. Here he explains more about this awesome annual event.

Each year, schools, colleges, scout groups and Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme participants head for Devon and on to Dartmoor to take on the 26 different routes and take part over three different distances to meet the Ten Tors challenge.

From the first expedition in 1960, the Ten Tors is now so popular that numbers each year are limited to 2,400 individuals, made up of 400 teams of four to six.

Image: Legendary Dartmoor

The British Army also uses the famous landscape as a training ground for large-scale logistics exercises, and since 1977 the Jubilee Challenge, named in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s 25 years on the throne, has provided a shorter course of up to 15 miles for those with learning difficulties or physical disability.

The Ten Tors is not a race – although teams invariably compete to see who can finish first – but more a test of stamina, navigation and survival skills.

The weather can play a huge part in proceedings – Dartmoor is renowned for varying conditions which can change in a heartbeat. In 1996, the event was struck by heavy snow storms; two years later, temperatures reached nearly 80°F.

Each team must carry their own food (pasties are not obligatory but highly recommended), clothing, tents and sleeping equipment, cooking stove and energy rations, collect their own drinking water from the moor and treat it with purification tablets, and have a designated team leader who is responsible for ensuring the official routecard is stamped at every checkpoint.

For 14 – 15 year olds, there are 12 bronze routes of 56 kilometres, for those aged 16 – 17 the ten silver routes involve 72 kilometres, and for those going for gold there are four routes of 89 kilometres aimed at 18 -19 year olds.

Those with a bronze medal in their sights must camp at one of the manned tors en route; silver and gold participants can camp anywhere on the moor.

See more tasty morsels at http://mydavidcameron.com/

David Cameron is Munching for you

A Cornish Christmas

My morning was much brightened when a colleague happend to mention that one of the few days he isn’t reluctant to part company with his pillow and duvet in the mornings is Christmas Day – wonderful to know that the magic of Christmas hasn’t been entirely lost due to the bombardment of festive adverts trying to lead us to believe that we need spend spend spend buying lavish gifts and mountains of food.

I have a sneaking suspicion that my colleague is from the other side (non Devon) of the Tamar in Plymouth which makes him a Cornish chap – which prompeted this post about gifts from Cornwall.

Thoughtful Giving

In this day and age there is no reason that gifts shouldn’t be more than a hurried purchase simply to fulfil expectations. We have previously looked at the benefits of charity gifts and how easy it is to break free from traditional wedding lists top encourage giving ethical gifts and unusual wedding gifts that support charity

Here we embrace the spirit of kind gifts and in the spirit of shop local, act global we check out what gifts the South West has to offer.

Personal Gifts for Pasty Muncher

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to find well wishers had left a Pasty gift on my desk.

Pasty Coaster

Although described as a coaster I prefer to call it a beer mat. Featuring Che Guevara with a slightly embelished quote

The revolution is not a pasty that bakes itself, you have to take it from the oven.

Checking out the awkwardly designed Raw Cornish web site eventually uncovered a cornucopia of Cornish themed gift including the PastyChe range of giftware giving the pasty celebrity status comprising of coasters, bookmarks and greetings cards. pasty fans please note the site offers no online ordering facility and appears not to feature the above coaster.

Difference between Devon and Cornwall folk?

Cream on first and then the jam

Cos he’s a zpazztic Cornishman

Many gifts from the region feature food and drink heavily – clotted cream with impossible lifespans, fudge, bloomin’ scrumpy and a range of sickly cornish liqueurs – boozey strawberry and cream.

Cornish Hampers

Some enterprising pasty munchers such as Purely Cornish have even begun to offer cornish hampers – gift baskets crammed full of local delicacies and delivered to your door.

Many people are happy to pay a little bit extra for the hamper being professionally assembled and beautifully presented – see some of the elaborate luxury hampers that leading retailers are offering but for those of you, like me, who are as tight as a gnat’s chuff, money can be saved by putting together your own Christmas hampers.

Note – purely Cornish offer a pick your own which is half way to personalising the gift.

Eat, drink and be merry – munch with the best of ’em

The Eden Project  called for pasty makers across Cornwall, the UK and the world to enter the competition.

The 2015 World Pasty Championships  took place on 28th February.  This is an open event and every pasty entered is judged.

Jorge Pereira, who was attending the World Pasty Championships at the Eden Project in Cornwall as part of a two-month visit to the UK, won the open savoury amateur category with an empanada Chilena, a traditional Chilean pasty made with beef, onion, hard-boiled egg, olives and sultanas.

There are eight categories with the opportunity to enter a traditional Cornish pasty or an alternative savoury pasty:

As Mark Muncey (shurely Muncher?) of the Cornish Pasty Association wrote “The championships at Eden will be a great celebration of the pasty and a chance for bakers in Cornwall and beyond to show off their talents.”

Keep the faith and adhere to the rules to note then its time to crimp your crusts.

MUNCH ON!

Semi-ripe cuttings are taken from this season’s growth where the tip of the stem is still soft but the base is harder, which is roughly where the new roots will come from. Once you get your eye in you’ll start seeing loads of plant material that looks ripe for multiplying.

According the the Royal Horticultural Society website it is worth noting that, before mid-summer, propagate by taking softwood cuttings. And, after mid-autumn, the wood hardens, so take hardwood cuttings then.
Ten pointers for perfect cuttings

• Make sure you have a very sharp, clean pair of secateurs and a large plastic bag so the cuttings don’t dry out. Once you have taken them, keep them in shade (or the fridge) and look to pot them up as quickly as possible, definitely on the same day and no later.
• Cut a decent section of this year’s growth (the stem will be noticeably a lighter colour and more flexible than last year’s woodier growth). Keep it moist by placing it in the bag while you are taking other cuttings.
• To prepare the cutting use secateurs or a sharp knife and a cutting board if the material is too soft for secateurs. Cut the stem down to a length of about 10 to15 cm, cutting cleanly just below a leaf (this is where the plants new roots will come from) and take off the soft top just above a node (this is the slight swelling where next year’s leaves come from).
• Pinch off or cut the lower leaves from the bottom third or half of the stem. You’re looking to finish up with a stem about 10 to 15cm long.
• Some woody plants such as pyracantha, ceanothus and berberis take better with a small “heel” of older wood at their base. Pull down on a side stem taking with it a small piece of bark where it’s attached to the older stem, as this is where plants hold some natural rooting hormone. Clean up the very tip of the heel by cutting away any really straggly bits with a sharp knife.
• If you like, dip the bottom into hormone rooting powder and tap off the excess. This promotes root growth, but some gardeners do it and some don’t, it’s up to you.
• With evergreen large-leaved plants such as bay or Portuguese laurel cut the top leaves in half to reduce transpiration.
• Insert the cutting into a pot containing a mix of about 50 per cent sharp sand or perlite and 50 per cent potting compost or similar. Depending on the plant and size of pot, you can place a few around the outside of a single pot but make sure they don’t touch.
• Water well and let the pot drain.
• The trick now is to keep your cuttings free from frost, ideally a little warm, and don’t let them dry out. If you have a greenhouse or cold frame in your garden then that’s perfect but don’t worry if not. You can use a clear plastic bag secured with a rubber band over the pot which will act as a mini-greenhouse, then place it in a light frost-free spot out of direct sun such as a porch. Keep the compost moist at all times but let in air to circulate and remove excess moisture from the plastic bag when necessary.

By mid-spring your cuttings should have some roots and be ready to pot into larger pots or plant out into the ground. They will need “hardening off” for two to three weeks to acclimatise them to life outdoors. This can be done in a cool greenhouse, cold frame or outside covered with horticultural fleece. Let the young plants breathe by leaving them open to the elements on a warm day and protect them at night when temperatures drop.