Katy's blog | Recipes, tips, inspiration a cute pics of 'pets+cookers'!

Nancy The Wolfhound - Nearly As Big As A 4 Oven Aga Range Cooker

At Blake & Bull we make no secret that we are big fans of the furry friends that nestle by your Aga range cookers! We are very BIG fans of this beautiful BIG hound! 

Nancy is as tall as her human's 4 oven Aga range cooker, now converted to electrikit. This is the 2nd electric conversion for this beautiful range, originally set up to burn LPG. Swapping to the electrikit will halve this home's fuel bills again.

Better placed elements inside this kit reduce the fuel consumption of the cooker. Making it the most viable electric retrofit kit (when compared with 13amp & 30 amp systems*).

Here is the lovely cooker... but the star of the show..? ..

..has got to be Nancy!

Congratulations on such a beautiful hound Neil! 

Katy

* Figures based on data generously given by our community as part of the Blake & Bull annual survey. 

OH HELLO HUMPHREY! ⁠

What a face! This furry dude is a rescue pup from Spain, now happily very much loved and ensconced by his Cream Pre'74 Aga range cooker! Thanks to mum Sue for sharing him with us! #happy #woofwednesday! 

Real post! A thank you for great customer service!

What a talented lady Janet is! It was a joy to chat to Janet, and very special to receive some real post! So rare these days! I remember sitting on the lower step when I was a teen, waiting for the post box to loudly creak open and slam shut. Falling to the mat was news from friends often in envelopes covered in doodles and awkwardly placed stamps! Gotta love real post with a handwritten envelope! 

Janet hand painted the card that she sent us, and we think it is really quite beautiful!

"What a treat it was to deal with such a good company as Blake and Bull. I had an excellent and happy chat with Katy when I rang to order the thermometer. One would have thought I was ordering an expensive Aga range cooker, not a cheap thermometer! It arrived a day later but had been damaged. I sent an email to report it and the next day a replacement arrived along with a tube of sweets! If I win the lottery and build a new kitchen I will contact Blake and Bull for them to install an Aga range cooker for me. They have been an absolute pleasure to deal with. I wish them every success and thoroughly recommend them for their excellent customer care." Janet

Thank you for the happy post Janet! 

Katy x

High Praise For Our Lid Liners

Just once a year we offer up our 'a little less than perfect' stock at discount. Clare stashed hers away, hoping that in time the job may just do itself. No such luck though! So she undertook the lid upgrade and now look! What a colour too! This is a sunbeam of a cooker!

                                                                                                                                      

"Dear lovely people at Blake and Bull

                                                                                                                                      

This Set Of Pictures Could Not Be Cuter!

Oh Melissa has spoilt you lovely lot with this trio of piccies! Mimi is the sweetest poodle pup, and here she happily poses in her favourite spots to help her mum show off her Blake & Bull wares! Happy fuzzy cosy Sunday everyone! 

Mimi is 4 and her favourite place is by the cooker! 

This really is a poodle on a drying rack on an Aga range cooker! to be fair, if the weather was damp and foggy and the cooker warm, this is where I would be! ensconced in a warm nook with a book! I reckon Mimi likes a bit of Agatha Christie!

Melissa makes great use of her simmering set, gently warming and toasting bagels on the hot plate using a simmering liner.  Remember that if you have a total control, you will need a bigger size!

I adore this green unit! It must look fabulous when you stand back to take in the red fridge, sleek black cooker, and that pop of fresh green! Melissa makes great use of her half size rack, when she still needs to use one hotplate to make a brew! 

Our Ultimate Pans Are Back In Stock, This Perfect Recipe Celebrates Them!

It is Scottish food fortnight!. Antonia has put together this hearty dish to warm your cockles, celebrate the cuisine & cook in your Ultimate Casserole Pan! 

Eagerly awaited and much in demand, our ultimate pans are now BACK IN STOCK!  

These really are the best pan that you will ever use - if you love the ease of non-stick, even cooking, heat retention and great hotplate contact - these are for you. 

Venison is a delicious, lean meat which lends itself brilliantly to slow-cooking in an Aga range cooker simmering oven. The meat becomes meltingly tender and combined with the flavours of juniper, thyme and red wine, this makes for a wonderfully satisfying autumnal or winter dish. The bramble jelly adds a welcome touch of sweetness but if you can’t get this, redcurrant jelly works well too!

Results From A Blake & Bull Cleaning Kit Suitable To Use On Vitreous Enamel

It has been quite a 'red' September so far! We have had a delightful influx of pictures of Caret cookers, spruced up for the winter months. This is our first Pillar Box Red of the month. Here we have a lovely set of photos of Helen's cleaning efforts. Thank you Helen! 

Now you lovely lot, here is a task for you! Helen has inherited this spectacular range (Pre'74 solid fuel conversion to gas), in amazing condition considering its age, with a house move. She has tenderly cleaned it, and is now a little more attached to it. But she still needs fully converting to its merits! Hopefully a warm winter by its side will help, but can you offer some words of encouragement to help her along?

"Spent 4 hours cleaning this today! Thanks to @blakeandbull for the amazing kit and instructions, without which I would have been clueless. SOOOOOO, after all of that, I do like it a bit more and am excited to get it serviced and turned on next week. And then get it re-enamelled if we like it..."

Votes for Red to Cream? Or Pistachio!? Helen is just starting on her renovation journey of her lovely Edwardian home! I am enjoying seeing her progress so far. 

Great use of the paste here, not too liberal and evenly spread. It pays to be methodical with this, then step away whilst it does its good work!

I just adore Pillar Box Red, especially when it shines like this! ❤️

Looks great EH? Helen used our cleaning visual guide to ensure that she got the most from her kit. 

Wet Autumnal Weather - The Big Switch On Is ON! & Drying Racks Are Out!

I am still catching up from laundry generated by 3 days camping & beach rambling over a week ago! Then in comes the Autumn rain, eager to dampen my spirits and hair on the school run and make my washing line redundant all but for the storage of rain drops along its length. Perfect drying rack weather!

The same seems true across the country, as you lovely folk switch your faithful friends back on and deploy freshly purchased Blake & Bull racks to dry your linens. 

"So glad I saw these on your website. I wish I had purchased them sooner." Carol, Sept 2019

"A real asset! - I have lots of washing that can’t be tumble dried so the dryer is ideal. A full load is dried and ironed overnight!" Andree, September 2019

"Great Bit of Well Made Kit - I grew up with a Rayburn range cooker so I’m very used to using it for drying. We’ve just moved in to our new home that has an Aga range cooker, which the round hot plate covers don’t lend themselves to stacking laundry as well as the Rayburn. The Blake & Bull dryer resolves this problem and more, because we’re able to dry more and it is tidier." Tom, September 2019

There are 13 things that you can use your rack for, and we are sure that there are even more! What do you use yours for? 

< GET DRYING! Hop on over to our Drying Racks & Rails collection

How to cook soft bread baps / rolls in an Aga range cooker - Inspired by the #britishbakeoff technical from last night? (no spoilers here! promise!)

How to cook soft bread baps / rolls in an Aga range cooker - Another great versatile and useful bread recipe from Christine, who is a Blake & Bull community member, home cook, practiced baker, and explorer of food.

Inspired by the #britishbakeoff technical from last night? (no spoilers here! promise!) We have a great soft bap recipe with tips suitable for baking in an Aga range cooker. Why not try our Ultimate Vege Burger recipe too! YUM!

This recipe is the perfect fit for our Heavy Duty Baking Tray -  back in stock this week! Look out for the notification if you are on the waiting list!

It is #sourdoughseptember too! Christine has been working for months on the perfect recipe, and a whole bunch of tips! COMING SOON!!

Don't forget as you reach for your drying rack as autumnal rain falls and forces you to abandon the washing line, you can prove on your Blake & Bull drying rack too! 

Dressed To Impress

Sharing Jo's WOW kitchen gives me the perfect excuse to remind you that these delightful Dotty textiles are still available at a bargain price - same great Blake & Bull quality, just a change of pattern on the horizon forces sell through! 

I love the use of the metal vintage style utilitarian glass unit here (from ikea), combined with a homely solid pine free standing unit. the bold statement cooker is softened by the warm wood, and the whole look is homely and characterful.

Equally beautiful is Gerald's home, who wrote in to sing the praises of his Dotty Gauntlets

"Dotty gloves - Had always found Aga gauntlets unwieldy to use possibly because of their inherent insulation padding, The Dotty gloves are so much more comfortable without sacrificing the heat resistant capability. Definitely a great success!"

< Get the look! Our dotty textiles are available as part of our clearance collection. Dotty hob covers with loops, back in stock soon for the last time!