A Dragonfly summer

We've had so many dragonflies and damselflies in the orchard these past few weeks, do you know how to tell the difference?

Well, dragonflies rest with wings outstretched whilst damselflies fold their wings together over their bodies when resting. Also damselflies tend to be smaller than the dragonfly and slower. 

We get lots of hawker dragonflies, they spend their time hawking to and fro in search of their insect prey, they're wonderful to watch but normally too fast for me to identify. The one I seem to most readily identify is a damselfly, the large red damselfly.

A book like The Natural History of Britain & Europe, edited by Michael Chinery, can be really helpful when it comes to the identification of dragonflies and damselflies, and loads of other insects, birds, mammals etc, that is where the above illustration comes from. 

It just so happens that we currently have a copy for sale in our secondhand book section for the princely sum of 50p. Now that's what we'd call a steal so if you want to know your Emperor Dragonfly from your Downy Emerald or your Brown Aeshna from your Banded Agrion you know where to come but you'd better be quick because it's unlikely to gather dust on the book shelves!

The Orchard Tea Room & Farm Shop

Redmoor Lane

Begdale 

Elm

Wisbech

Cambs

PE14 0RN

Telephone: 07527 046184

Website: theorchardtearoom.co.uk Twitter: @OrchardTeaRoom Facebook: The Orchard Tea Room

Opening Hours 10am-4pm daily

Apple and Carrot Cake

Our carrot cake is a firm favourite with tea room customers but if you'd like to try something a little different we're sharing a customer recipe for carrot and apple cake today: 

INGREDIENTS

250g butter divided into 2 portions of 125g each
250g caster sugar divided into 2 portions of 125g each
4 large eggs
100g plain flour
125g ground almonds
50ml milk
1 medium apple sliced
200g thinly sliced and diced carrot, the carrot slices should be much smaller than the apple slices.
1 tbsp cinnamon

METHOD

Preheat oven 180C / 350F / Gas mark 4

Line and grease a 8 inch cake tin

Melt 125g of butter and leave to stand 

Cream 125g of butter with 125g of butter, beat in 2 eggs into the creamed mixture then fold in the flour and add the milk. This mixture then goes into the prepared cake tin.

Next sprinkle the ground almonds evenly over the cake mixture then place the sliced apples and carrots on top of this mixture, making sure to keep them away from the edges.

Take the melted butter and beat in 125g of sugar, the 2 remaining eggs and the cinnamon. Pour this over your cake mixture.

Bake for approximately 1 hour, checking that it's fully cooked before removing from the oven. 

This cake should be left to cool before removing from the tin.

For an extra treat it's delicious served with  creme fraiche.