Buzy Bees

Honey is a pale yellow liquid, sweet, viscid and edible, collected and processed by bees from the nectar of flowers. The word honey comes from the Arabic hon which became in old English honig degenerating gradually to honey. The German word is still honeg.

Honey has been found in the tombs of ancient Egypt, where a jar of still edible honey was discovered in the Tomb of Queen Tyi’s parents. It was thought to be 3300 years old. Evidence has been found of honey being used by the Egyptian, soaked on bandages to form a ‘plaster cast’ for broken bones.

Considered by the Ancient Greeks to be sacred, and by the Hindus as a miracle food. Honey has been used as a sweetener in our diet long before the discovery of sugar. When the ancient Phoenician traders came to Britain for lead and tin they found the population consuming great quantities of honey and called Britain the Isles of Honey.

Honey is also hygroscopic, antibacterial, and is antiseptic. It is claimed to have medical and cosmetic properties, but beyond dispute is the unique and special flavour it adds to cooking.

Honey is of course produced by bees, and we must act to save our honey bees. A third of UK bee colonies have been lost over the last two years. There is strong evidence that neonicotinoids – a class of pesticide first used in agriculture in the mid 1990s at exactly the time when mass bee disappearances started occurring – are involved in the deaths. The evidence against these chemicals is strong enough that they have been banned or suspended in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia – but unfortunately not yet in the UK.

Neonicotinoids work as an insecticide by blocking specific neural pathways in the central nervous systems. The chemicals impair communication, homing and foraging ability, flight activity, ability to discriminate by smell, learning, and immune systems – all of which have an impact on bees ability to survive.

It seems bees genetic make up makes them particularly vulnerable to neonicotinoids. Recent mapping of the bee genome has revealed that bees capacity to detoxify chemicals is much lower than other insects. Instead bees have two strategies to protect themselves. On the first day of foraging in a new area, scout bees are sent out first to taste the nectar and pollens – if any are adversely affected they will be expelled from the hive immediately, and the colony will avoid the area. In addition to this, once foraging begins, nurse bees in the hive clean foragers each time they return. These strategies protect the colony from mass exposure to lethal doses of chemicals, but they do leave honey bees particularly susceptible to sub-lethal exposures to any contaminants they encounter.

The other really important factor is the complex behaviour of honeybee colonies. For example, the 10,000 forager bees in a typical hive need to co-ordinate their quest for nectar – and they do this through the famed ‘waggle dance’, which communicates the flight direction and distance to sources of nectar. The complexity and precision of these dances is breathtaking, and success relies on the integrity of a nervous system where each synapse is crucial. It is no surprise then that honey bees have been shown to have a higher number of neurological receptors than other insects.

Honey bees live and work as a colony, not as individuals; what seems to be happening is that the cumulative impact of small doses of nenoicotinoids on thousands of bees over time is affecting individual bee’s ability to work and communicate effectively as part of a colony. Because lots of bees in each colony are behaving sub-optimally this can lead to the sudden, and devastating, outcomes that we’ve been witnessing in recent years. Please do take the time to click here and sign up to help our bees.

So after the brief history of honey bees and their golden nectar I bet you’re wondering what this has to do with a blog entry categorised as “bread”, well it’s quite simple really – I made a bread incorporating some gorgeous honey. It was a pumpkin seed and Ivy Honey Malted Bread.

The ivy honey came from The Big Blue Sky shop in Norfolk, which you can read about here in detail (please do take the time to, the store is glorious), and as such was guaranteed to be a local product. It was produced by Orchid Apiaries who offer from resident apiaries traditional Norfolk honey, a blend of nectars gathered by the bees through the season. I bought the ivy honey purely out of curiosity, I had no idea what the flavour would be like at all; it turns out to be rather earthy and tinged with a note of coffee, yet with a medicinal overtone but not at all in a bad way. I wish I’d bought more than one jar, it really is a good job I’m going back to Norfolk soon The only downside to ivy honey is that it crystallises very quickly and hence doesn’t look so pretty sitting on the pantry shelf but that has no effect on the flavour at all, it is purely cosmetic.

I used malthouse flour from Shipton Mill to provide the backbone of the bread dough; it is one of my favourite and most used flours right now. It encompasses white wheat flour which is blended with three malts – whole crisp golden malted wheat flakes provide a delicious texture; a malted barley gives a soft rich malty flavour; and the dark malted rye gives a nutty flavour and relatively dark colour. A tablespoon of the ivy honey was added to the dough also which helped enhance the sweet malty flavour of the bread.

The risen dough was brushed with an ivy honey and water solution before gently being rolled in pumpkin seeds and baked. Pumpkin seeds are good sources of iron and zinc and of omega-3 fatty acids making them a great addition to a healthy loaf.

Having read Bread: River Cottage Handbook No. 3 (River Cottage Handbook 3) by Daniel Stevens I decided to try giving the loaf a second rise, something I had never thought to try out before, Daniel says this will help improve the texture and flavour of the finished bread and that it can be repeated up to four times. He is right, the texture and flavour were better, slightly closer in crumb and definitely more flavoursome in a wholesome yeasty kind of way; next time I will go for three rises

Another great idea is to spritz the oven with water when you put the dough in as it helps recreate a traditional bakers steam oven, I use a cheep plant mister I picked up from a local garden centre, nothing more fancy is required.

With a lovely soft and tender crumb the bread made for excellent sandwiches and great toast (ever so sweet then) but don’t do what I did and put the bread in the toaster, believe me trying to get out stuck pumpkin seeds is no fun at all, use the grill instead.

I only used half the dough for covering in pumpkin seeds and honey wash, the other half I formed into a batard which I dusted with rye flour and slashed before baking. Rye flour gives a lovely grey dusty colour to the bread once it has baked which contrasts well against the cooked bread. The batard was of the same flavour as the loaf but had a chewier crust due to it’s shape and the slashing of it. The batard was best simply sliced and served with ultra fresh creamy butter.

I am of course entering this bread to YeastSpotting which this coming week will be hosted by Nick of Macheesmo.

The Recipe:

• 1kg malthouse flour
• 10g powdered dried yeast
• 20g fine salt
• 600ml warm water
• 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
• 1 tablespoon ivy honey
• 2 handfuls of rye, for coating
• 1 teaspoon ivy honey mixed with 1 tablespoon boiling water for the honey wash
• 50g pumpkin seeds for coating

1. First, mix the dough. Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the liquid, and with one hand, mix to a rough dough. Add the oil and honey and mix it all together. Adjust the consistency if you need to with a little more flour or water to make a soft, kneadable, sticky dough. Turn the dough out on to a work surface and clean your hands. Knead the dough until it is as smooth and satiny as you can make it – this will take about 10 minutes. 
2. Shape the kneaded dough into a round. Then oil or flour the surface and put the dough into the wiped-out mixing bowl. 
3. Put the bowl in a bin liner and leave to ferment and rise until doubled in size. This could be anywhere between 45 min and 1½ hours – or longer still, if the dough is cold. 
4. Deflate the dough by tipping it on to the work surface and pressing all over with your fingertips. Then form it into a round. If you like, leave to rise again up to four times. This will improve the texture and flavour. 
5. Now switch the oven to 250C (or the equivalent) and put your baking tray in position. Get your water spray bottle ready if you have one, your serrated knife if using, and an oven cloth. Clear the area around the oven. 
6. Divide the dough into as many pieces as you wish (I suggest two large or three small loaves, or a dozen rolls). Shape these into rounds and leave them to rest, covered, for 10-15 min. 
7. Transfer to well-floured wooden boards and lay a plastic bag over the whole batch to stop it drying out. Leave to prove, checking often by giving gentle squeezes, until the loaves have almost doubled in size. 
8. Brush with the honey syrup and roll in pumpkin seeds (or scatter with rye flour). Transfer the loaves for baking to the hot tray (removed from the oven). Slash the tops, if you wish, and before you bake the bread, spray it all over with water. Put the tray in the oven, spritz some water into the oven and close the door as quickly as you can. Turn the heat down after about 10 minutes to: 200C if the crust still looks very pale; 180C if it is noticeably browning; 170C if it seems to be browning quickly. Bake until the loaves are well browned and crusty, and feel hollow when you tap them: in total, 10-20 min for rolls; 30-40 min for small loaves; 40-50 min for large loaves. If in doubt, bake for a few minutes longer. Leave to cool on a wire rack