7 Practical Tips for Cooking with Honey

Functions of Honey in Cooking

Cooking with honey gives you a never-ending list of possibilities and recipes due to the many practical functions honey could serve. Here I list you six:

Honey:

1) enhances browning and crisp -- great for glazing roasted and baked foods to promote surface browning.

2) is a flavour enhancer -- an always welcomed natural sweetener for hot teas and cold beverages, especially when there is a huge variety of flavours of honey.

3) provides texture and feel -- an excellent addition in pastries and cakes making.

4) retains moisture -- an essential ingredient for providing the moisture in rich cakes and prolonging the moisture retention.

5) is binding due to its viscosity -- a brilliant ingredient that aids shaping of desserts such as pastries, puddings, and cakes.

6) adds colour -- contributes a delightful golden hue to sauces, dressings, jellies, and frozen desserts.

7 Useful Tips on Cooking with Honey

1. As a general guide, when using honey recipes, use less of honey because it is almost twice as sweet as sugar. (Nevertheless some honey varieites are sweeter than others, e.g Tupelo honey.) Replace one cup of sugar for half a cup of honey.

2. Honey is hygroscopic (meaning it attracts water, so reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey added.

3. Give longer time for beating and more vigorous beating compared to sugar recipes, and when baking with honey.

4. Add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda for each cup of honey used. This will neutralize honey's acidity and help the food rise.

5. Reduce the oven temperature by 100 degrees Fahrenheit (i.e about 40 degrees Celsius). Honey batter becomes crisp and browns faster than sugar batter.

6. When using honey in jams, jellies, or candies, increase the cooking temperature just a bit to allow the extra liquid to evaporate.

7. The floral variety of the honey should be considered when cooking with honey since honey has the power to balance, enhance or impart some of its flavour to other foods. The fascinating number of honey varieties and their versatility in cooking is the reason to the thousands of tantalizing recipes using honey out there.

How to Measure Honey

Do you know how to measure honey for baking or cooking accurately without the unwanted sticky mess? Read How to Measure Honey Accurately.

Honey Powder Seems Good for Baking, or Does It?

Take a step back if you are considering honey powder as a sweetener in your baking. The idea of using honey is about incorporating a healthier sugar into your cooking. Using honey just defeat that purpose. More in: What in the World is Honey Powder?

Free Sweet and Sour Recipe eBook

Want a free copy of the fabulous Sweet and Sour Recipe ebook? Just share with us your experience with honey!

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