Snowdrop Valley: railway excursions to see the snowdrops

Over the coming half term holiday, 11^th - 19^th February 2017, the West Somerset Railway is running a diesel service which includes a trip to Snowdrop Valley.

The train leaves Bishops Lydeard at 10.30, arriving in Williton at about 11.00. Included in the ticket price is a bus service to Wheddon Cross. You can then either catch the park and ride bus (the cost of this is not included in your West Somerset Railway ticket) down to the valley or make your way on foot. Your bus will collect you from Wheddon Cross at 14.00 to meet the return train from Williton back to Bishops Lydeard.

Find more information and make your train booking on the West Somerset Railway website

 While you are in Wheddon Cross, you can enjoy lunch (or maybe just coffee and cake, tea and scones or our lovely home-made teacakes) at Exmoor House – we run a pop-up Snowdrop Valley tearoom. Our food is something special: more details here.  And if you'd like to spend a few days on beautiful Exmoor and enjoy some of the other sights too, why not book a short break with us? We offer bed and breakfast, and dinner too.

More information about Snowdrop Valley, with regular updates, can be found on the Wheddon Cross website.

Snowdrop Valley 2017, Wheddon Cross, Exmoor, Somerset

Snowdrop Valley is exactly that: a valley with lots of snowdrops. Tucked away on Exmoor in Somerset, just a mile or so from our guest house in Wheddon Cross, it's special because you can see the snowdrops flowering in natural woodland (many snowdrops walks are in a more formal setting such as parkland).

February is generally peak snowdrop season, although of course it depends mainly on the weather as to when the blooms will be at their best. Access to Snowdrop Valley is by walking, or by minibus. The walk, which takes you down to the valley and back up again, is very pretty. As you might imagine, it can be very muddy, so you need to wear wellies or walking boots.

The minibuses are organised by our local parish council. They run from the village car park (across the road from our place and next to the pub). You'll also find an information point where you can get directions and advice and buy snowdrop-related souvenirs. If the village car park is full, there is generally overflow parking available at the cattle market just down the road (except on market days).

In 2017 the road to Snowdrop Valley is closed from 28th January to 26th February inclusive, hence the park & ride minibuses. The park & ride service runs from 4th to 19th February, so on the other dates you can only get to the valley if you walk.

The Wheddon Cross village website has regular updates. You can also download a bus timetable and an information leaflet.

If you fancy a few nights' break on Exmoor to see the snowdrops, you can enjoy a relaxing stay at Exmoor House and enjoy our great food.

Gluten free and dairy free lemon cake recipe

The other day Chef Frank was out and we had guests checking in who don’t eat wheat or dairy (you might already know that at Exmoor House we specialise in catering for special dietary requirements). So I adapted a recipe from the back of a packet of Dove’s Farm gluten & wheat-free white self-raising flour blend, in order to offer our guests something to eat with a cup of tea when they arrived. As an aside: interestingly, many ‘free from’ recipes are either wheat free / gluten free or dairy free, but not both.

Here’s what I did.

Ingredients:
125g gluten/wheat-free self raising flour
100g dairy-free margarine (we like the PURE sunflower one)
125g caster sugar (granulated also works fine)
2 eggs
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp poppy seeds
for the topping: juice of half a lemon; icing sugar

Method:
Put all the ingredients (except those for the topping) into a large bowl and beat or whisk really well. Pour into an oiled/greased and lined 500g loaf tin.
Bake at 170-190°C (according to your oven) for 45 minutes, or until the cake is springy to the touch and a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cake in the tin, on a cooling rack.
Now for the topping. Add some icing sugar, bit by bit, to the juice of half a lemon, mixing all the time, until you get a light syrupy consistency and it tastes sweetish but still nice and lemony. Make lots of little holes in the top of the cake with a cocktail stick and pour the syrup over it; leave the cake to cool completely before turning it out of the tin.

Of course, for quality control purposes I had to try a piece, and then had to resist the temptation to scoff the lot…

Read more about the food at Exmoor House

Autumn on Exmoor: enjoying the harvest

I’ve always loved autumn; to me as a child it meant bonfires, harvest festivals, picking blackberries, seeing the changing colours of the leaves, then jumping into piles of crunchy leaves… and thinking about it, nothing much has changed – that still just about sums it up.

Here on Exmoor, the local villages will soon be holding their harvest lunches and suppers, to celebrate the

gathering in of all kinds of crops – and just to have a get-together - always fun occasions and very well attended.

Autumn really does seem to be a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness this year. The past few days have started off mysteriously misty, with full sun by the afternoon. And fruitfulness-wise, everything’s been burgeoning. The glut has meant that we’ve been lucky enough to have received various produce from kind people. If you've read this blog before, or seen our webstie, you'll know that food is a subject very dear to our hearts.

First came a large Boston winter squash, from which we made soup (see http://exmoorhousewx.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/squash-soup-autumn-recipe-from-exmoor.html ). Then some wonderful windfall apples. Nothing can compare with fresh English apples; it’s a shame so many in the shops are imported. Plums from a neighbour’s tree have made up into lovely jam; ornamental Japanese quinces from another neighbour have given us japonica jelly. Made in a similar way to apple jelly, it has a sweet-and-sour taste that goes well with meat and cheese – and apple pie. We’ve also served it with our vanilla ice cream as part of a fruity sundae. There are field mushrooms galore; delicious with a garlic sauce, or simply fried in a bit of butter (NB: never eat any wild mushrooms unless you have definitely identified them as being non-poisonous). And of course we’ve been picking blackberries; try blackberry and pear crumble as a change from the ubiquitous blackberry and apple.

The beautiful summer we’ve had has done wonders for the herbs in our garden. The lovage plant reached over 8 feet tall this year. Normally by this time it would not have many leaves left; but there is quite a bit of new growth at the foot so we’ll probably get a few more pans of carrot & lovage soup yet. I’ve already got some of the seeds drying (they can be used to season casseroles and so on, and have a particular affinity with beef). The mint has gone, well, berserk – and the rosemary has done better than I’ve ever seen it here.

Exmoor’s changing colours are always a delight; at this time of year the beech hedges are starting to fade to browny-gold; there are just a last few flowers of heather and gorse clinging on, and the hawthorn and rowan berries are in their full glory. Why not come and see for yourself?

Food at Exmoor House: 'traditional with a twist'

One of the main things that makes Exmoor House a bit different is our food. Our guests tell us that it’s a highlight of their visit and a major reason why they come back and stay with us again. Generally about 80% of guests have dinner here; many book our multi-night dinner, bed & breakfast packages.


So, why is our food different? For a start it’s genuinely home-made, by an expert. Frank trained as a chef quite a few years ago but hadn’t cooked for a living for some time. He really enjoyed getting back in a professional kitchen again when we bought Exmoor House – something to get his teeth into, as it were.

We aim to be imaginative in our cooking without being too way out or fancy (traditional with a twist is how I describe it). Some recipes are our invention; others we’ve gleaned from various sources and adapted. Just a few of our specialities: proper pies; ice creams; breads; pickles and preserves. You’ll find a previous post about our pies here: http://exmoorhousewx.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/who-ate-all-pies.html

The menu changes every day. There are normally two or three choices for each course rather than a vast array of dishes (quality over quantity is the watchword). So that everybody has a good choice, we encourage guests to discuss any dietary needs and preferences with us when they book.

And that brings me to another Exmoor House difference: catering for special diets. Each day’s menu is designed around the guests who are eating with us that evening. We do some really good vegetarian food. To give you some examples, here’s a link to my summery guest post on Jane Alexander’s Exmoor Jane blog: http://exmoorjane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/exmoor-house-vegetarian-barbecues-and.html

And other requirements? For example, if you don’t eat wheat, gluten, dairy, prefer to follow a low-fat diet, or there’s anything you are allergic to, let us know when you make your booking and we’ll see if we can devise menus to suit. Of course, do tell us if there’s something you’d really like to see on the menu, too! You can find a review by some of our regular guests here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g1370522-d1509595-r131599478-Exmoor_House_Wheddon_Cross-Exmoor_National_Park_Somerset_England.html

We insist on good quality ingredients, and wherever possible we use local producers and suppliers, both from an environmental point of view and because we want to support other local businesses. I blogged about this a while ago: http://exmoorhousewx.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/food-glorious-local-food.html

Most of the suppliers we use are the still the same people as in the above post (we have a good relationship with them and they’re consistent and reliable). There is one significant change, though – our previous wine merchant has retired and we now get most of our wine from the equally excellent Vitis Vinifera, based down the hill in Dunster.

By the way, you don’t have to be staying here to enjoy dinner at Exmoor House – although, for reasons which will be apparent from this article, you do need to book a few days in advance.