Joanne Barrett - Cooking with honey

Joanne Barrett

One night in May, five years ago, we unloaded forty beehives into our small orchard. This was my first experience with bees and honey. Throughout that summer, we were amazed by the continuous hum from the bees. By August, we were truly up to our elbows in honey, selling most, but keeping all we needed for our family.

With honey free for the taking, I gradually switched from cooking and baking with sugar to preparing food entirely with honey. Learning to cook with honey has been fun. I began by using recipes that called for honey. Then I found that I could use honey to replace all or some of the sugar in almost any recipe, if I followed a few simple rules. I often experimented adding a bit more of one thing or another so that a recipe worked out. My family has become quite used to tasting honey in the foods I cook. Yet, it is always a treat to hear a guest say, Oh, this was made with honey!

In this bulletin, I have tried to illustrate the versatility of honey. Honey can enrich most any food. The distinctive flavor can be enjoyed as just a hint of a teaspoon in a salad dressing or in the full richness of the flavor in a dessert.

Flowers secrete a sweet liquid called nectar. Bees collect this nectar and carry it back to the hive, where it is thickened into honey. During the hot summer months, bees store much more honey than they can use, and the beekeeper harvests this surplus. Honey can be obtained in several forms.

Comb honey. Honey can be left in the wax combs, just as the bees store it. Comb honey is delightful to eat, wax and all, spread on a warm slice of fresh bread or a muffin. Since the bees have sealed it in wax, it keeps all the original flavor months later.

Liquid honey. This honey is spun from the combs and bottled. Most commercial honey is warmed before bottling so it will remain liquid. Liquid honey is the easiest and most commonly used form for cooking.

Crystallized honey. This is extracted honey which has been bottled unheated. It will undergo a natural process of granulation and will retain its original flavors better than heated honey. It has a nice, easily spread consistency, and many people prefer their honey this way when they become familiar with it. Slow warming in a pan of water will reliquify crystallized honey if this is desired.

There are as many flavors of honey as there are flowers. In early summer we get honey from wild berries and locust trees. The main honey flow occurs up here in the North during July, and we harvest a delicious light honey made from the blossoms of clover, alfalfa, and wild flowers. As the season progresses, the later flowers, goldenrod and aster, darken the color and make the flavor more pronounced. Honey can be as dark as molasses, as those who know buckwheat honey can attest. Its dark color and distinctive flavor cannot be mistaken. If one type of flower predominates in an area, the honey will have its flavor. Most of you have probably seen orange blossom, tupelo, or sourwood honey for sale.

Generally, the lighter the honey, the milder is its flavor and the better it is for general cooking.

Honey is a liquid sweet, and unlike sugar, it adds a special flavor to foods. It tends to absorb moisture, which enables baked goods to stay fresher for a longer time.

There are a few basic cooking techniques which are helpful to know when preparing food with honey.

Substitute the honey cup for cup of sugar, but decrease the amount of liquid in the recipe by cup.

If you find that honey is too sweet cup for cup of sugar, substitute cup of honey for each cup of sugar and reduce the amount of liquid by 2 to 3 tablespoons.

Measure the honey in a cup after the oil or fat in a recipe, or coat the cup or spoon with oil. This keeps the honey from sticking to the cup so you get all the honey out.

Honey is acidic. In baked goods where as much as 1 cup of honey is being substituted for sugar, if no baking soda is called for, add teaspoon of baking soda.

Honey works best in most recipes as a liquid. It can then be added slowly to the other liquid ingredients in the recipe.

Crystallized honey can be measured cup for cup of liquid honey; the two can be used interchangeably in cooking. But crystallized honey tends to make baked goods denser. What I do is measure the crystallized honey in a metal measuring cup, put the metal cup in a pan of warm water, doubleboiler style, until the honey liquifies. Then I add the liquid honey to my ingredients after it is cooled.

When substituting honey for sugar in a recipe, bake the food longer and at an oven temperature 25F. lower than the original recipe called for.

Most honey breads and cakes improve in flavor and texture if they are baked and wrapped a day before eating.

And now enjoy yourself!

In our house, there is always a ten-pound can of honey on the counter. We dip into it all day long. Here are some of the ways we use it.

Spread it on warm bread or toast; then sprinkle on some cinnamon.

Try a teaspoon in a cup of tea.

Stir a tablespoon or two into plain yogurt; then add raisins, nuts, or fresh fruit.

Spoon it onto your favorite breakfast cereal; it goes especially well with warm oatmeal. Sprinkle on a little cinnamon, too.

Our favorite sandwich is peanut butter and honey on whole wheat bread or toast. Try sprinkling on a little coconut.

Honey is very soothing in a cup of warm milk on a cold winter night.

Make honey butter by blending softened butter, preferably unsalted, and the same amount or less of honey. Refrigerate it and enjoy it on waffles, pancakes, or anything.