We're back!

 Apologies for the radio silence of late, we've been busy setting up our online cheese store L'affinage du Fromage which is already proving really popular.  If you're struggling to find exciting cheese or simply need to send a gift for that difficult to buy for person check out the site. We offer chilled next day delivery to most UK addresses if you place your order before midday.

Of course, Snowdrop Cottage remains really busy too.  You will now find us  trading at Whiteladies Road market every Saturday,  The Frome Independent and The Clevedon Sunday Market each month as well as various shows throughout the year - check out our events page for the latest information.

We now sell a mouth watering range of patisserie which has gone down a storm already, as well as a range of vegetarian 'sausage rolls', you'll have to be quick though, they sell out fast each week!

Always baked fresh the day before each market our pastries have won many awards, most noticeably BGFA 'Best Pie' for the last two years.  However, come and find out for yourself at one of our markets!  Hope to see you soon!

Celebrations at Snowdrop Cottage

It's been super busy at Snowdrop Cottage over the last few weeks.  Wedding and party season is well under way and we've been helping with the festivities!  One of our lovely regular customers who visits our market stalls in Clifton approached us some time ago wanting a little advise about the birthday party she was planning for herself.  Above all it should be relaxing she said, it'll be in the garden for close family and friends.  So, we helped her choose a wonderful cheese selection and freshly baked some large tarts for her to keep her out of the kitchen and enjoying her day.  All went well apparently despite the Snowdrop Cottage vibes for good weather not working particularly well, we'll have to work on those!

As well as parties we've also been caught up with wedding fever.  One of our regular customers approached us to supply cheese for his daughters wedding a few weeks ago and yesterday we helped Rebecca choose her cheese for her wedding 'cake'.  There's always plenty to do planning a wedding and some of the most fun bits include tasting all the food!  We managed to include many of Rebecca's favourites and a few new ones too!  If you'd like us to supply cheese for any of your occasions just drop us a line!

I must confess.....

I've always hankered after having a go at wonderful French Patisserie, my mouth would water on holiday when we passed little chocolatiers and Patisseries with perfect little offerings tempting us at the window.  Of course, I'm no where near their dizzy heights of perfection but we've managed some lovely little tarts of late which we've introduced to Whiteladies Road and The Frome Independent markets which I hope you've enjoyed!

Today we've been baking again and this time we'll have some wonderful Pistachio and Rose meringues to offer the lovely people of The Frome Independent on Sunday.  As well as some rather beautiful White Chocolate and Blackberry Tarts - let us know what you think!

We'll also have some of the wonderful roasted Butternut Bombs, perfect with salad or some steamed vegetables for  a light lunch or an alternative to the dreaded packed lunch!

We'll be in Scott Road tomorrow at Frome in our usual spot, come say hello to Leo and try some new bits and pieces.  I'll be at The Sunday Market in Clevedon, a wonderful market with food, craft and lots more.  See you soon!  Louise x

Ooooo la la

It really was a case of 'now you see us, now you don't when we introduced these little beauties at Whiteladies Road market last week.  They're delicate pots of pate sucree with combinations of white chocolate ganache, fresh raspberries, fresh figs and sumptuous organic dark chocolate.  They certainly went down and storm and this week we'll be introducing two new little tarts - a fresh, zingy lemon tart and a rather lovely fresh berry with creme patisserie.  They're at an introductory special offer at the moment too!   Keep an eye on our instagram account for upto the minute pics www.instagram.com/snowdropcottage

We've also a new range of gluten free pies, same award winning fillings but with a gluten free pastry top!  Sustainability is never far from our thoughts so we're offering them in their own dish which when returned gives money off your next purchase.

New Westcombe cheese alert!

We're so excited to introduce a new cheese to our stall for you to try.  Today on our 'cheese run' we visited Westcombe Dairy in East Somerset to pick up some of their rather lovely cheddar, their tasting notes describe it as:

a deep complex flavour with a mellow lactic tang and long notes of citrus, hazelnut and caramel. The texture is structured and firm, with a smooth breakdown that keeps the flavours lingering on your palate. This cheese is often called a 'five mile Cheddar', as you’re still tasting it five miles down the road!

As if your mouth wasn't already watering you might also like to know that unpasteurised milk from their own herd of Holstein Friesian cows is used to create their cheese which is matured for up to 18months. We'd love you to come and try this beautiful cheese and tell us what you think so come and find us at Whiteladies Road market this Saturday where you'll see it proudly displayed (and me grinning away with cheese happiness!).

Perfect gifts for Valentines at Snowdrop Cottage

Love will soon be in the air with Valentines Day only weeks away!  If you're struggling to think of that perfect gift - let cheese be the food of love!!!  We'll have some of these beautiful organic cheddar waxed hearts available to buy individually or packaged with some crackers and our Snowdrop Cottage Award winning chutneys to provide the perfect gift!

Of course a romantic evening wouldn't be complete without a lovely meal!  We'll be cooking up some delicious pies (psssst - we're officially the best pie producer in Bristol don't forget!) perfect for two!  Keep an eye out for some more information!

Last chance for Christmas Puddings and Cheese orders!

We've just cooked up a few more Traditional Christmas Puddings ready to sell this weekend.  Come and find us early doors at Whiteladies Road Market to bag yourselves one.

We'll be handing our our first Christmas cheese orders on the weekend as well.  You still have chance to order your cheese ready for collection on Christmas Eve at Whiteladies Road Market.  Order forms can be picked up from our market stall Saturday or else please email me at snowdropcottagefinefoods@gmail.com and we can send one out to you.

Hope to see you soon, Louise x

Christmas Cheese Orders

We want to make Christmas easier for you this year and have now taken delivery of our cheese order forms.  

You'll be able to pick them up from Sarah at Whiteladies Road market tomorrow and every Saturday up until 17th December.

All the cheese you know and love are available to order, just tell us how much you'd like, when you'd like to pick it up, hand it back to us and we'll sort the rest out. No waiting in long queues and no disappointment. We'll wrap your cheese beautifully and even provide a gift tag and box if it's for a present.

We've included a range of salami and chorizo from the Cotswold Curer and our own homemade 'Traditional' or 'Cranberry & Gingerbread' Christmas Puddings. We've also a range of our award winning chutneys for you to order to compliment your cheeseboard.

The weather looks to be a fine Autumnal day tomorrow so come on down, try some cheese and say hello! 

Louise x

Belated news at Snowdrop Cottage

I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who voted us through as finalists for the Bristol Good Food Awards.  We were delighted and a little shocked to win 'Best Pie' category!  Up against some big names in the pie world we knew the competition would be very stiff but the judges thought our pies deserved the award (and so did you)!  Our Autumn range is really going down a treat with us selling out fast at each market we attend.  So, thank you to everyone who has supported us, we may be little but it's nice to know we're packing a big punch with our pies! Louise x

Snowdrop Cottage - Our Autumn range is here....

We've introduced some new pies and tarts this Autumn, time to settle in front of the fire and enjoy some good hearty food!  Tomorrow at Whiteladies Road market we'll be introducing our complete new seasonal range:

The Stag

(Badminton Estate Venison slowly cooked in red wine with caramelized

red onions, root vegetables and a redcurrant sauce)

The Old Spot

(Pork shoulder cooked in Orchard Pig 'Truffler' cider, with Bramley apple and

sage & onion stuffing)

Mumbai Mash

(Sweet potato, paneer, masala spiced chick peas, fresh spinach with hints of 

tumeric, fennel, garlic, ginger & chilli in a tomato sauce)

Jolly Hock'y Chick

(Chicken breast with marfona potato, ham hock, peas, leek & mushroom in a

chicken sauce)

Moo & Blue

(Tender steak slowly cooked in Guinness with Cropwell Bishop stilton, smoky bacon, 

root vegetables and red onion.)

We also have some award winning charcuterie from the 'Cotswold Curer'.  Based in the Cotswolds Free Range Gloucester Old Spot pork is slowly air dried over many weeks to provide an exceptional product.  Come and have a try of:

French Style Saucisson

Sweet Chorizo

Garlic with a hint of Chilli

Salami with Green Peppercorns

Spicy Chorizo

Salami with Fennel & Red Wine

Of course we also stock beautiful sausage from Southern Italy too.  Come and have a try!

Bristol Good Food Awards 2016

Voting has now begun for the 2016 Bristol Good Food Awards.  if you enjoy feasting on a pie or adding a zing to the start of the day with our marmalade or fire in your belly with our  chutneys we'd love you to vote for us!  You can click here and vote in the following categories:

Best Local Preserve

Best Local Pickle

Best Local Pie

Thank you,

Louise & Leo x

STOP PRESS - New pie alert!

Drum roll please...... may I introduce you to our new pie 'Slow roasted pork with Bramley apple and stuffing in a cider gravy' - although I'm sure we'll come up with a more catchy name soon! We introduced this pie yesterday at Frome Market and customers have already reported back - it's a winner!  

We ensure each pie is generously filled and topped with stuffing before sealing the lid and adding Nigella seeds.  Every single pie is individually made and finished, no machines here just environmentally friendly re usable pie containers which get washed up (thanks Mum!) that are then ready for the next batch.

We'll be at Whiteladies Road market on Saturday and Wells Food Festival on Sunday so come and try one before they sell out fast!

Glorious Cheese

Photo courtesey of orders.booths.co.uk

We're very excited to be introducing a couple of new cheeses to the stall at Whiteladies Road Market on Saturday.  The first is this wonderful Kit Calvert Wensleydale, a young cheese which is matured for only 13/14 weeks, but fresh and full of flavour.  You can read all about it in this wonderful article written by Victoria Moore here.  

Photo courtesy of cotswoldcheese.com

This is a Caerphilly like you've never tasted before!  Earthy and buttery and with three layers of deliciousness.  The grey rind is leafy, the middle part is fresh with citrus undertones and the layer next to the rind is yellow and creamy.  Another article written by Bee Wilson explains perfectly why we have chosen this cheese for our stall.  She happened upon it at Abergavenny Food Festival where our pies and pastries will be yet again this year.

We'd love to see you on Saturday, come and try our cheese and tell us what you think!

Treefest!

A very big thank you to the lovely people at Westonbirt and all those that attended Treefest  last weekend, we had a lovely time and the weather for once stayed warm and dry. We ended the weekend on a high when Leo was presented with this award on Monday for 'Best promotion of sustainable food source'.  We try our upmost to source good quality local ingredients which support the local economy and cut down on food miles thus helping to maintain a greener environment.

We've a busy weekend coming up (click here) so do come and say hello, we'll even have our new award on display!

The joy of garden fencing and other ponderings

So often gardens are boxed in with high fencing whilst people scurry in, heads down, out their front doors pausing only for a quick glance behind to see who may be around.  It's different at Snowdrop Cottage - the fences are low, wine is passed across whilst we enjoy a catch up with neighbours and the sun shines on our backs.  Very recently even 'Crumble' the cat enjoyed a film night snuggled in between our neighbours having snuck in and made himself at home!  Yesterday Dave our neighbour called over 'would you like some veggies?' - our veggie garden had suffered slightly whilst we were away so the offer was very welcome.  Anne from two doors away also left with arms full of courgettes and cucumbers.

So, tomorrow I'll be cooking for Whiteladies Road Market in Clifton and our vegetarian pie will include the beautiful Squash grown by Dave and our 'Beetroot Bombs' will have home grown rainbow beetroot from our vegetable garden and some of Dave's courgettes.  It's simple food, zero air miles and absolutely seasonal.

It's a little cooler here today so this afternoon will be spent clearing up the vegetable garden, and ripping up the sweet peas which are unfortunately looking very sorry for themselves.  We've some new lettuces to plant and a tray of wall flowers to plant too!  There may even be some wine passed over the fence whilst we chat about our successes and failures in the gardena and look forward to the next part of the growing season.  

Workshops at Snowdrop Cottage - Christmas Gifts

We're so excited!  Our kitchen is finally ready to introduce our first workshops at Snowdrop Cottage!  There is still quite a lot to be done until we're completely finished (so please bear with us) and with Christmas here all too soon we simply couldn't wait any longer!

Our friends and family love to receive our edible gifts at any time of the year and with a little know how and help they are both fun and easy to make.  Our first set of workshop dates enable you plenty of time to plan your Christmas menu and gifts which you'll learn to make and take home with you:

Cranberry and Gingerbread Christmas Pudding
Our award winning Honeyed Fig chutney

Cranberry Curd or Zingy Lemon Curd
Homemade Orange and Walnut Mincemeat

The day will start at 10am and run through until 3pm with welcome coffee & biscuits and home made lunch provided.  Please when booking your place on our Christmas Gifts day  inform us of any special dietary needs.  You'll leave with everything you have made that day, recipes to make more at home and most importantly plenty of confidence to have a go yourself!

The following dates are currently available to book:

Wednesday 12th October

Wednesday 9th November

Wednesday 16th November
Wednesday 23rd November
**** SORRY FULLY BOOKED - MORE DATES TO BE RELEASED SOON ****

These workshops make excellent birthday gifts and are suitable for the most novice cooks amongst us.  To book a place please email:  snowdropcottagefinefoods@gmail.com stating the date required, number of places and a phone number and we'll be in contact.  The day will cost £85 with a maximum of 4 people on each course date.

The holidays begin.....

We love holidays, the chance to take a break and kick back with a glass of wine in the sun whilst the children play happily (mostly!).  However, when we happened upon this little market in Rochefort our eyes lit up.  The French are experts when it comes to their produce markets with row upon row of jewelled fruits and vegetables, melons stacked high and crepes sizzling away.  My husband spent quite some time at the sausage stall before picking out the ones that tempted him the most, which was all of them, but the line had to be drawn at four!

The next week or so was spent dreaming of how we could introduce Snowdrop Cottage to the streets of Southern France whilst living in an idyllic bleached blue shuttered country farmhouse conversing with the locals and swimming in the rivers.  Who knows, maybe one day!  However, it was soon time to load the car up and head back to reality, hopefully it won't be long until we return again and start a new French adventure.

 












Safely back home Mr Snowdrop surprised me with this gorgeous bouquet of flowers from our lovely friend Jac  for my birthday.  Jac grows her flowers just a couple of miles from Snowdrop Cottage and sells them at Whiteladies Road and The Shambles Market, Stroud, we think they're rather special.

We're turning our attention to the next few months ahead and will be shortly posting details and dates for our workshops which we're very excited about so keep your eye out for our updates!

Clevedon Sunday Market

We're really excited to be part of The Clevedon Sunday Market on 3rd July.  We'll be bringing along our homemade pastries and a few new seasonal extras to tempt you, after all calories don't count on the weekends right?  There will be over 40 stalls attending so plenty to see and to keep the children entertained.  Hopefully we'll see some of our old customers there but we're also looking forward to meeting some new ones.  Keep your fingers crossed for some good weather!

Frome - Hide and seek!

Just to let you all know that we'll be at Frome market tomorrow - hurray!!!!  However, we won't be in our usual spot (boo!).  Come and find us on Scott road opposite Boots.  We've been baking all day to bring you our usual top notch goodies so come and say hello!!!

More cheese please!

Photo courtesy of slowridetoturin,co.uk

We're really excited to be stocking some new cheeses on our stall which we hope you're really going to enjoy!  The first one is the lovely 'Dorset Blue Vinny' made at Woodbridge Farm in Sturminster Newton by Mike Davis and his team.  It was in 1980 that Mike decided to resurrect the 300 year old recipe using unpasteurized milk from his own herd of Friesian cows deep in the Dorset countryside.  This cheese is made using skimmed milk and has a lovely creamy texture, slightly crumbly and a little stronger in flavour than Stilton.

Photo courtesy of dorsetblue.com

Thankfully Mike and the cheesemakers no longer employ the old fashioned method of dragging mouldy old horse reins through the milk to ensure the perfect amount of mould, instead (thankfully) a mould solution is added.

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be whisked away by a good friend for a few days in Barcelona.  We're always quieter at this time of the year so it really was the perfect excuse to disappear for some rest and relaxation.  Of course for me this also meant eating some fabulous Catalan cuisine and sampling some lovely cheeses.  With the sun on our faces, overlooking the spectacular harbour we feasted on some lovely Manchego cheese and tapas.  The cheese had a fabulous nutty flavour, with a hint of sweetness and really did go rather well with a generous gin and tonic.  On my return I simply had to order some for our customers to enjoy as well.  In fact we sold out at the first market we started selling this cheese!

Photo courtsesy of achat-fromage-fermier.com

Our eagle eyed regular customers will have noticed we now stock this fabulous Brie made by the Donge brothers, just outside Paris.  Quite rightly it was been named the 'King of Cheeses' in 1814 at a culinary tournament in Vienna, it has also won the very coveted Medaille D'Or for the last 9 years.  This is a firm family favourite in our household and coupled with a good bottle of red wine is a feast on it's own.

We'll be at Whiteladies Road Market tomorrow, come and say hello, talk cheese with us and sample some of the lovely new additions we have!