Batty for Halloween?

30th October 2017

It’s the time of year when thoughts turn to ghouls, spooks and more.  Here at The Consumables Company, we’ve compiled a Pinterest board which is brimming over with ideas for laboratory inspired Halloween tricks and treats.

Halloween is a great time to embrace your inner mad scientist; grab a laboratory flask and some test tubes and create some oozing, bubbly, slimy mixtures and enjoy the fun.  We hope you enjoy creating your best party ever; as much as we’ve loved curating these ideas for you.

We have also been working with several animal rescue charities recently, who use our teeny pipettes to feed the babies that are in their care. 

Did you know there are 18 species of bat living in the UK?  This baby bat (or pup as they are known) was being looked after at The Secret World Wildlife Rescue Centre in Somerset.   At the centre, they aim to prevent British wildlife from suffering needlessly and inspire an understanding and love of wildlife and the countryside. 

The bat pups are sometimes fed with goat’s milk which is similar to the composition of bat’s milk. They’ll be fed between every one to three hours depending on the bat’s size and species.  

A rescue bat being pipette fed

Although bats feature a great deal around Halloween, they may already be hibernating at this time of year.  Instead of thinking that bats are somehow scary we should be celebrating their usefulness to the environment; some plants depend on bats to pollinate flowers and disperse seeds, while other bats help pest control by eating insects.

Unfortunately, the UK bat population has greatly reduced over the past few years; many of the sites where bats would feed and roost have been destroyed for the construction of homes and roads, as our towns and cities have expanded. 

The extensive use of pesticides in farming has reduced the numbers of insects that the bats fed upon and also killed some of the bats themselves. Now all British bats and the areas where they roost are protected by law.

We are delighted to support the work of these animal rehabilitation centres and love seeing the pictures and hearing the stories of their work.

We are especially thrilled to see our products being used in exciting and different ways, if you’d like us to feature you, please get in touch.

No hibernating at Flavourtown Bakery where they have produced these tasty Halloween cupcakes, some with potion filled pipettes!

Lovingly Crafted Cocktails … …

16th October 2017

Following on from the British Food Fortnight theme, it’s time for cocktail mixing! A relatively new business, Myatt’s Fields Cocktails is a handmade cocktail company set up by Clemency and Cyrus. They share a deep love in the craft of fine cocktail making.

What makes their specially crafted cocktails different from the norm is their process of aging cocktails. This enhances the flavours and creates a smokiness and subtlety that you don’t find in a freshly mixed drink. Clemency and Cyrus explain, “At Myatt’s Fields Cocktails, we age our core range under glass, so the drinks mentioned here are the same superb drink every single time. Ageing cocktails is a wonderful mix of art and science and has helped light up the cocktail world.” You can read their story here. At The Consumables Company we share their passion for quality and consistency and look forward to seeing them flourish.

In the lab where Myatt’s delectable creations are crafted, our measuring beakers and corked test tubes are put to great use. Whatever your language, we raise our glasses you and say “cheers” the origin of which may be as captured by the following anecdote:

First recorded as “makien cheres” in 1225 AD, the phrase evolved to “what chere be with you?” in the 14th century which was a common greeting in England. Eventually, ‘chere’ began to mean good humour. In 1919, the phrase was first written as the “cheers” we know today.

From Bean to Bar …

7th October 2017

As British Food Fortnight ends, we have another blog to tempt the taste buds, inspired by Annette (Nettie) the Urban Kitchen Chef. Formerly a horticulturist and garden designer, she’s a passionate advocate of supporting the best of British and chocolate!
Annette trained with some of the best chefs in the industry including the chocolatier, Mark Tilling (winner of Bake Off Crème de la Crème 2016) and her passion is patisserie and more recently chocolate.

Recently our metal screw cap containers came in handy to present the components of a chocolate teaching resource kit. The taste buds might be tempted, but the kit contents are not for consumption! Schools, colleges and universities will instead get to enjoy learning about the journey from bean to bar.

Annette says, “I like to use quality ingredients that are in season and wherever possible I use local, traceable produce. I am a firm believer in cooking sustainable food.” As well as catering for your next event, The Urban Chef also offers workshops at a range of locations in Dorset.

Celebrating British Food Fortnight – with pipettes!

4th October 2017

At The Consumables Company we are proud to support British Food Fortnight which this year runs from 23rd September to 8th October 2017.  The event started in 2002 after the Foot and Mouth crisis, to celebrate the diverse variety of producers in food and drink in the UK and promotes the benefits of buying British.  You can read more here www.lovebritishfood.co.uk.

One of our London-based customers is the multi award winning Flavourtown Bakery. Their amazingly talented team includes some of the finest bakers and decorators in the capital and they create cakes and cupcakes by hand and with a meticulous eye for detail, supplying both Harrods and Selfridges with cupcakes.

Laura the company owner, says, “The Consumables Company is like a treasure chest for a company like ours and browsing their website it becomes clear that pipettes would make an epic addition to some of our layer cakes, helping transform our cupcakes into something totally unique.

A business like Flavourtown needs to stand out and last year we wanted something really unusual for a Christmas campaign.  So, after a brainstorming session we decided to develop a Pigs in Blanket cupcake. We knew that the cupcake needed to have caramelised candied bacon for the pigs part of the equation and we paired this with a sage spiced buttermilk cake and icing BUT there was something missing… Cranberry sauce! We knew The Consumables Company would have something to help us top off this unique cupcake concoction and we found it in the shape of pipettes! We filled these with a handmade cranberry sauce and the Pigs in Blankets cupcake was featured in London and national press.”  Spot the pipettes in Flavourtown’s Halloween cupcakes too!

At Flavourtown they believe that if you only put the finest ingredients in you get the most indulgent, mouth-watering treats out!  They only use organic free-range eggs from the farm which are accredited by the Organic Growers Association, The Soil Association, RSPCA Freedom Foods and British Red Lion Quality to ensure the hens receive the highest potential standards of animal welfare, the farmer even hand delivers to the bakery!

Halloween cupcakes with foodsafe pipettes

A little cutie – for a message in a bottle perhaps?

3rd October 2017

Something of a novel spin on laboratory consumables. this cute little glass bottle with cork stopper is sure to be a hit with our creative customers.

Shown here containing cake sprinkles to make a pretty decoration, this bottle has a cornucopia of possible uses …

How about, a message in a bottle for a loved one, as gift tag perhaps or to store fairy dust or glitter, coloured sand or baby’s first tooth?   For Christmas or other celebrations, cover with adhesive and dip in coloured glitter for a sparkly decoration and add string or ribbon – or apply glass paints. Other folks may use the little bottles to store a secret, a wish, a prayer or a spell – the choice is yours.  Search our website for product code GLTC or click here for more information.  You may also like to check out Pinterest boards for inspiration for this product or for ideas for others from our range.  This small bottle shown below with scale rule, excluding the stopper measures 32mm x 12mm.  

Corning brand 4ml round bottom cryo vial

3rd October 2017

New to our range of cryo products, a 4ml, round bottom cryo vial by Corning (manufactuer reference 430490)

As shown on one of the images, the vial has 2ml & 3.6ml graduations where contents can be seen through the vial which is otherwise largely covered by an obscured panel.  These vials close with an internal thread and have the benefit of a washer in the cap assembly to prevent liquid bypass.  Inclusive of the cap, each unit measures 70mm x 12mm.

For further details our product reference is 4CV or click here. To view our other cryo products, simply type cyro in to the search box on our home page.