So this weekend we were busy busy busy - as well as Mark playing with his band E.R. at the White Horse Swavesey's Halloween night - we had a Food Fayre at Ramsey Rural Museum to bake for. So Mark came thru the door at quarter to one; shaped all the dough from earlier in the day; went to bed for 2 hours - got up and baked baked baked.
Caroline went off to Ramsey - and it was Slow Slow Slow! And so we had a lot of produce not sold - and potentially going to waste - not great in food terms - and B awful in Business terms!!
So a message was sent forth on Gmail, Twitter, Facebook. And Caroline took a pile of bread to the Panto rehearsal.
And guess what - we sold it all - so thank you to all who bought something - and sorry to all those who wanted to but we could not satisfy.
Beer Bread
A good neighbour brews his own beer - he's a very good neighbour!! Brewing beer produces what is know as 'spent' grain, usually hops and barley - but also sometimes wheat.
In the past you may konw that bakers and brewers were located near eachother because the only reliable source of yeast was produced in the brewing industry.Orb is trying to rekindle this link - we've taken the spent grain, squeezed it (keeping the very tasty liquid); dried it out and then 'milled' it in our food processor.
We've used this to make a very tasty and fibre-ful 100% wholemeal loaf. Mark is just trying to finalise this and then we'll cost it. If we manage to get this done this week we'll take a few down to Bushel Box and to Rosegate and put on the order form next week.
Bolus - Cinnamon Buns return
And talking of order forms... it's Autumn, it's gone passed Halloween and its nearly November 5th - and so it's time for Bolus to come back on the repertoire! These are tasty glorious sweet buns from the Netherlands via Jewish baking culture - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeuwse_bolus - they are a bit like a Dutch Chelsea Bun!
They are great fun to make even if very fiddly!! Mark is looking forward baking them again - not least because all the leaking butter and sugar from these buns make incredible slicks of toffee!!
ORB ORDER FORM AVAILABLE CLICK HERE
Allinson's Flour questions...
You may recall a couple of week's ago we said we'd asked Allinson's flour if they knew if the wheat they mill has been spayed with potentially carcinogenic weed killer glyphosate. We've heard nothing (apart from auto reply) from the two messages we sent via the website. Mark has called the company (an interesting experience - just try to find the right telephone number - no tel numbers on website surprise surprise! He has spoken to several people and been passed from pillar to post. No one knew about the glyphosate issue - one person even asked Mark to spell it (so finger's are not really on the pulse there!). On all occasions Mark was promised a call back. Needless to say that has not happened yet!
Mark will be chasing again this week.
Cosmopolitan Customers
Orb is very pleased to have an incredibly wide variety of customers; different types of families, young, old, single people, couples, teenagers. And we are also very pleased to have a great number of people from around the world - at St Ives we have a Italian, Spanish, Croatian regular customers - and here in Over we have French, and now Russian customers. And we have a Danish lady that insists on coming from Cambridge to get our bread. What is greatly encouraging to us is that all the Cosmopolitan Customer come from countries that still have very active bread cultures - and all say to us how wonderful it is to find real bread again! Makes us feel warm inside!
Rosegate Mini Farmer's Market - this Saturday 7th Nov
Our good friends at Rosegate Farm and Butchery in Swavesey have a few stalls pitching up this Saturday - Ashworth Oils (Olive Oil), Eat the Rainbow (soups and salads), Fen End Country Kitchen (Preserves, Chutneys).
We'll be there too - or rather our bread and cakes will be!! We've got a family baby naming to go to and so Tom Ashworth has kindly agreed to sell our produce for us.
And don't forget Over Village Market 12th December
16 stalls already booked up!
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