Best Recipe Ideas for Farm-Fresh Honey
The sheer amount of honey produced can actually be overwhelming, especially to new apiarists that don’t know what to do with it. Of course, if sealed properly with methods like pressure canning, honey can last for decades or even centuries, but if harvesting only for yourself, the amount of honey in your larder can begin to pile up if you’re unable to use it all by the following year. Some bees produce so much honey, you can even harvest a jar in the middle of winter.
There are more ways to use honey than simply having it in your tea with cream or milk. Here are just a few of the recipes that can help make that farm-fresh Ontario harvested honey shine in superior taste and quality.
1. Mead
This alcoholic beverage is known nowadays as a relatively sweet wine with low alcohol levels, but this drink is ancient. It can be traced back to dozens of different cultures from Welsh to Chinese, and there is evidence of its existence from preserved pottery jars all the way back in the 7th millennium BCE in the Neolithic village of Jiahu, Henan province, Northern China. Back then, it was made with honey, rice and fruit. At the same time, barely beer and grape wine were just beginning to gain ground in the Middle East.
Later, honey-derived alcoholic drinks became even more commonplace such as in Gaul, Teutonic Europe, Greece and Scandinavia as a popular drink substitute for places where grapes could not be grown. It even reaches as far as Beowulf, a piece of surviving Old English literature, where it is described as a drink of Kings.
If you’re interested in trying this honey-flavoured drink, it is a great and simple option that requires unchlorinated water, wine yeast, and a bucket for fermentation. There are many great how-tos out there to help lead beginners through the steps.
2. Honey-Infused Butter
If you already have cattle on your homestead, some may find this a no-brainer. However, there are a surprising number of people that don’t realize what match honey and butter can be. Honey butter is actually a commonly found flavour in chips and sauces. It’s more common in the South and can be served with all sorts of starch-rich foods like breads, muffins, pancakes, and more. It can be a great addition to both savoury and sweet foods, so it is recommended to experiment with your own homemade honey butter and see what you like best.
What makes it even better is how accessible it is to make it. 4 parts homemade butter, 1 part farm fresh honey, and you will have better honey butter than you could get in any store.
3. Breads, Cookies, and Cakes
Honey is an excellent addition to any recipe that involves baking. Whether you’re looking at ways to deepen the flavour of your challah or you want to change the texture of your cookie for something gooier, honey is an oddly satisfying method of changing up a recipe. It is, however, important to note that because honey is sweeter than sugar, you should be aware of just how much you’re using in a recipe. Each cup of sugar is the rough equivalent of ¾ a cup plus 1 tablespoon of honey. Because of the Maillard reaction and the natural penchant for caramelization in honey, they also brown faster. This means your baked good may not be able to stay as long in the oven as other sugary sweets.
Lastly, have fun with your honeyed experiments! There are many ways to use this versatile product, and if you’re farming it yourself there is no end to how delicious your foods can be.
