Now the nights are drawing in and we’re getting all snuggly, we thought we’d share a recipe with you. Our Chocabloc is HUGELY decadent and is utterly lovely when served straight from the fridge in wicked little slivers.

We’ve been serving the Chocobloc (see the recipe below) as part of our Dorset Food Week sampling sessions in our Bee Shack café and our visitors really seem to like it. It’s doubtful that we’d ever make it commercially as it is incredibly expensive and wouldn’t travel particularly well in the warmer months… but maybe as a Christmas special for next year? We’ll have to persuade Matt, our financial genius, to blow the moths off his purse.

Another fine idea for Christmas is to serve Heathcliffe Brownie or the Carrot Cake warmed through as a dessert served with a luscious dollopette of brandy butter or proper ice cream. Both of these cakes have quite a lot going on in the flavour and texture departments. For example, for the Heathcliffe Brownie we make our own nut flour by pre toasting whole, skin on almonds to maximise flavour. We then magimix the nuts toproduce a coarse textured "flour" full of flavour. The most luscious cake warmed through (in our opinion) is our Carrot Cake which contains Marsala soaked raisins and apricots anda cheeky pinch of pepper for a little kick on the finish. Since we launched the Carrot Cake this Spring, we’ve added a light orange icing which has proved really popular.

Our brand new savoury BumbleO. Packed to the rafters with local, seriously good ingredients, the BumbleO is the perfect alternative to a pasty or sandwich. Made in our wheat free kitchen, it is wheat and gluten free. We have developed several flavours and the first will be launched in February 2007. Number One BumbleO is topped with spicy  tomato chutney, vintage Denhay Cheddar and sun dried tomato with a sprinkling of herbs. BumbleO no. 1 comes in its own little biodegradable tray and is perfect for Busy Bees on the go.

We have revised and improved the Mooosh bar to make it even more chocolatey and mintier. We use a guaranteed dairy and gluten free dark chocolate and now drizzle the whole delicious concoction with a punchy peppermint icing. In the icing we've opted for an organic icing sugar to avoid any artificial anti caking agents.

Chocabloc Recipe: Makes 1 traybake. Ingredients: 400 grms Amondi chunks - See Em's blog on Tuesday, 28th November for the recipe (www.honeybuns.co.uk/blog) 100 grms toasted chopped almonds 150 grms golden syrup 225 grms butter 2 teaspoons coffee extract (Lakeland do a nice one) 320 grms Valrhona dark choc or any good dark chocolate you can get hold of 1 teaspoon Boyajian orange oil (Lakeland) Method: Melt the butter and syrup in microwave on medium heat and stir each minute until completely melted. Once melted add the coffee extract and stir. Melt the Dark chocolate gently on low heat in the microwave. To do this, break the chocolate into little chunks and pop onto medium heat. Stir every minute until just melting. Take out and stir vigorously until completely melted. Mix the melted chocolate, butter, syrup and coffee in a mixing bowl. The mix should become quite thick. Add the orange zest, orange oil, Amondi pieces and almonds. Pop the mixture into your tray and shake and jiggle until all the tray corners are full of mixture. Pop in the fridge / freezer to chill down and set. Should be ready after 8 hours in a fridge or leave overnight. We use Blade trays- again these are available from Lakeland for about £8 and are ideal for all traybakes. Please note: the Amondi are dairy free as well as gluten free. If you'd like to keep the Chocabloc dairy free too, just swap over the Valrhona for a certified dairy free dark chocolate and use the same amount of "Pure" vegetable fat instead of the butter.

The Animals: As we hurtle into darkness and wet, blustery days we thought we'd give you a quick update on the stars of the Honeybuns show: Sam  and Joan  are still  in love and spend  most of their time snuggled up in their barn - open plan - living quarters. If it is mild they are turned out in the field behind the Bee Shack Cafe. Sam is getting on a bit now and has a tendency to buck and bounce around when we turn him out, only to then fall over as his legs give out on him. We are currently mixing glucosamine in with his feed to help keep his joints supple and hopefully keeping him upright!. Margot and Hilary are as round as little barrels and their Angora  heritage is coming out. As the temp drops their coats get fluffier. All animal residents are on full winter rations and are kept warm and toasty at night.

We are on a mission to reduce our ecological footprint still further by reducing the number of vehicles that currently visit the farm for the bakery business. We have just converted our old calf pen buildings adjoining the bakery to store more incoming ingredients. We can now store many more ingredients by the pallet load which means less packaging (larger packs) and less lorry visits as we can process larger deliveries.

Our new bakery building is due to start in 2007and will incorporate as many ecologically helpful measures as is possible. By converting the existing massive barn we can save an awful lot of resources by not building something from scratch. We aim to be thrifty and wise when converting and are very grateful that the previous farming owners
left all of these wonderful old farm buildings intact!

Another new project is for us to trial biodegradable cardboard baking trays. At the moment we bake in foils and these trays are recycled. We can still do better and we are very keen to give the carboard ones a fair go. We'll keep you posted on this.

BLOG Em's Blog is now up and running and is updated every other day with news on "All the other things we do besides cake". Em and Matt both live on the farm and the blog often reflects what the animals have been up to as well as the larger business picture. Please have a look on :..... www.honeybuns.co.uk/blog Also the new web site is now live! www.honeybuns.co.uk

Favourite breaktime treat? "Sandwich corners from the packing team or having my tummy tickled by Alan the Initial driver. Tough one that!" Favourite job? "Security officer at the annual Bee Hop" Favourite hobby? "Well, I'm quite busy really with  digging and patrolling the boundaries but when I do have a quiet five minutes to myself I like to sit in Em's Belfast sink. I've removed the old rose she  had in there and I 've made  a  nice sunbathing nest  in the compost ... bliss!"

FORTHCOMING EVENTS 2006

Buzz:
Matt's band, Buzz are playing a free Christmas gig.
All welcome, Friday 22nd December in Holwell.
Call 01963 23597 for details.

The Bee Shack Saturdays:

Saturday special Christmas shopping days at the Bee Shack
16th December 11am -5pm   ---   23rd December 11am -5pm
Free nibbles and mulled wine and open for tea and cake and cake wrapping service.
Sorry no lunches on these days.

Saturday 6th January
We are open for lunch again in the Bee Shack as normal. Light lunches available but booking is essential.

For previous newsletters please see www.honeybuns.co.uk/thebee