Having copious amounts of delicious, quality honey is one of the things that makes staying at a bee farm worth the stings. This is honey that sells for $18 a quart or so, so having it at my disposal for free is a real luxury. I started playing around with baking with it, and the best thing I’ve pulled off so far is this honey whole wheat bread. I chose a really dark and richly flavored cat’s claw & mesquite for this bread, which comes out with subtlety in the bread.

Honey Wheat Bread

• 500g whole wheat flour

• 230g all purpose flour, extra for kneading
• 345g warm water
• 170g milk
• 50g cat’s claw/mesquite honey (or any dark, flavorful honey), extra for glaze
• 10g (3 tsp) yeast
• small amount of butter for glazing

Dissolve the yeast with the warm water in a large bowl. The water should be just above body temperature.

Add whole wheat flour, milk, honey and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon until combined. Begin adding all purpose flour one cup at a time until a doughy consistency is attained and the mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Transfer your dough to a floured board. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 – 15 minutes. Once kneading is complete, form the dough into a tight ball and place into a large greased bowl. Put the top side down first, then flip it over to grease the whole loaf.

Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 90 minutes.

Once risen, punch down dough, deflating and pressing the air bubbles out of it. Cut the dough into two equal pieces with a sharp knife or bench scraper. Form each into a ball then stretch it out into an oval shape. Lay each into a greased 9×5″ loaf pan.

Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 60 minutes. Halfway into the rising time, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Just before baking, melt a small amount of butter and honey together and brush over the top of each loaf. Slash the top of the loaves with a sharp knife or razor.

Put the bread onto a center rack of your oven and bake until evenly browned, about 45 minutes.

Today is one of those stereotypically hot desert days in southern New Mexico. I’m staying near Socorro, where the climate and landscape is dry and harsh, and where I spent several hours wandering aimlessly along a BLM road for fun. It wouldn’t be so bad except that the little cacti and shrubs offer absolutely no shade and the sun is pretty relentless.

As soon as I got back I wanted to drink something cool and refreshing that was not water, which I’ve had plenty of. The big watermelon recently harvested from the garden was practically begging to be turned into aguas frescas.

I remember having a great agua de sandía at a Cuban restaurant in San Francisco, and from what I can remember, it was just watermelon, lime, mint and a sweetener, all of which was on hand.

The ingredients were all home grown here at Bee Chama Honey Farm, with the exception of some random key limes I found in the fridge. And, being on a bee farm and all, I picked a light, candy-like meadowfoam honey to sweeten the drink.

The hardest part was picking seeds out of the watermelon, which I am apparently no pro at. After managing to get some watermelon satisfactorily liquefied, I added two key limes, a sprig of mint, and honey. It turned out great, but being one who can’t stop from experimenting with chilies lately, a threw in a pinch of roasted red chili powder to my glass. Then it was perfect.

Agua de Sandía

• 1 seeded watermelon – as much of it as will fit in your blender
  
• Sprig of fresh mint
  
• Two key limes, peeled and seeded
  
• Light, sweet honey to taste (approx. 1 cup)
  
• Roasted red chili powder to taste
  

Chop the seeded watermelon into small chunks and blend until liquified. Add mint and limes and blend until incorporated. Add honey a bit at a time to taste. Add a small amount of chili powder if the mood strikes you.

I try not to be, but I might as well come to terms with the fact that I’m kind of a baking snob. Making dessert is just as much science as it is art to me, and I’m always obsessively weighing just the right amounts, getting the oven to just the right temperature, using all the right appliances, etc., etc. I suppose I might be just a bit picky. But this works for me.

So imagine my confusion when I was to bake in Earth Mountain Farm’s outdoor kitchen (unclean!) with a wood fired stove and just the bare possible minimum baking equipment. My only measuring device was a glass liquid measuring cup – fine for liquids, but inaccurate for dry ingredients. No teaspoons, tablespoons or scales. No oven thermometer. I was scared.

I decided to make scones again, because I make them so often I feel like I could eye the right mix of ingredients pretty well. I rummaged around the pantry until I found some chocolate chips, pecans and shredded coconut, which I thought would make a pretty tasty scone.

We heated up the wood fired cob horno, and waited while it heated up for a few hours. There was no way to say what the temperature was, but pretty hot would cover it. While I was waiting, I got inspired to make some carrot muffins from some of the amazingly sweet and yummy carrots growing in the garden.

Cob Horno

I should also mention that I’m used to baking at sea level, and here I was around 8,000 feet higher. Things didn’t quite rise like I’d hoped, but they rose enough to be good. What we managed to keep from eating ourselves, we saved to sell at the farmer’s market and blues festival the next day. Oh, and I also managed to assemble about a hundred veggie burritos to sell as well.

Happily I averted any serious baking disasters. But I had one more challenge before I left the farm – it was one of the other volunteer’s birthday, and we were planning a little dinner celebration. I was asked to make the cake – oh, and without flour and butter, if I could help it.

I could eat something with flour in it every day, maybe even three times a day, for the rest of my life and never have any ill will toward it. I go through massive bags of it at home, and it’s the first thing I go to when asked to make a cake. Here a few people were saying they were still on flour overload from the muffins and scones, so a flourless cake was in order.

I admit I used a little flour – just a few tablespoons! – but I did manage to steer clear of butter. To keep the cake from becoming a big rectangle of fudge, I whipped egg whites to a fairly stiff meringue using a whisk that you hand crank. It was some serious work and made me miss my KitchenAid a lot. That got folded into the batter and popped into the wood oven.

The cake was looking quite beautiful – rose just a little bit, then started to set nicely – until I tried to take it out to poke at it and accidentally hit the top against one of the wire racks. So now it had a little scar… no big deal. I left it in and decided not to fuss over it for a while. But one of the problems with the wood oven is that its temperature fluctuates wildly depending on what’s happening in the burner. I guess the fire got fed and things heated up, because before I knew it the outside was a little burned.

So it wouldn’t be the most beautiful cake ever, and I hadn’t made any plans to frost it. Oh well! I was confident it would be tasty anyway. We couldn’t find any birthday candles, but a couple of tea lights stood in. I served it with a jar of home made peach butter, and despite it all, it was rich, chocolaty, and great.