Honey

Honey is a very sweet, thick fluid produced by bees from flower nectar. Like all natural things, honey can vary enormously, with colours ranging from almost white to darkest amber and with consistencies varying from runny to solid.

Honey Varieties

Comb honey (or honeycomb) is the purest form of honey, taken directly from the beehive as a comb with a layer of wax sealing the honey in the cells. Chunk honey includes pieces of the comb bottled in liquid honey. In both products, the comb is edible, providing a sweet, chewy treat. Liquid honey will crystallise naturally once it has been taken out of the comb; granulated or creamed honeys should be smooth and fine grained, with no coarse or gritty crystals. Clear, runny honeys have usually been heat-treated to prevent them from crystallising.

Honeycomb

Pure Clover Honey

Buckwheat Honey

The honey's colour, flavour and sweetness are dependent on the type of flower the nectar was collected from and the colour of the pigments in the plant. Some of the common flowering plants or trees used by bees to produce honey are: acacia, avocado, buckwheat, chestnut, clover, dandelion, eucalyptus, heather, lavender, orange blossom, pine, sage, sunflower, tupelo, thyme and ulmo. Each plant produces a somewhat different flavour, with some being significantly stronger than others. Normally, the bees' main diet will be written on the label of the honey (for example, clover, heather or acacia honey), although sometimes the nectar may come from several different varieties of flower and may be sold simply as wildflower honey.

The paler honeys gathered from meadow flowers such as clover have a mild, clean, delicate flavour that may be used for sweetening, baking, desserts and making sweets; clover honey is the best all-round variety for cooking and eating. Heather honey is light golden with a distinctive thick consistency. It has a rich flavour - slightly aromatic and tangy, with a pleasing aftertaste of burnt caramel. More exotic honeys such as sage, orange blossom, thyme and lavender have a more heavily scented flavour that works well in sauces, marinades and dressings. The stronger honeys, such as chestnut, pine and tulip poplar are best used for earthy or savoury dishes requiring a more powerful flavour, such as red meats, cheese and rich cakes.

Cooking with Honey

Honey is a versatile ingredient that may be used to sweeten both sweet and savoury recipes such as marinades, sauces, ice cream, cakes, breads, puddings and is excellent when drizzled over fruit or natural yogurt. It may also be enjoyed in its own right, spread on hot toast or in sandwiches.

Honey may be used in place of sugar in many recipes; however, it is much sweeter than sugar, so less is needed (two teaspoons of honey is approximately equivalent to three teaspoons of sugar). If used in yeast baking, honey will slightly lengthen the rising time. Biscuits made with honey will have a softer texture and won't be as crisp as those made with sugar. Likewise, ice creams and frozen yoghurts made with honey will usually have a softer consistency than those sweetened with sugar as the freezing point of honey is lower.

Honey should be stored in a cool dark dry place; it will crystallise and harden when refrigerated. If clear honey crystallises and goes cloudy, simply place the jar in hot water until the honey turns to liquid. Comb and chunk honey may be stored for up to seven months, whilst liquid honey will last up to a year.