Honey - guide to buying, using and storing organic honey

Honey - guide to buying, using, and storing honey

Honey is an organic alternative to sugar. It is a natural source of sugar and very easy on the stomach. It has an indefinite date of usage and it is a great addition to your cooking process. Honey, as a sweetening agent has been used for centuries (even millenia). As that, it has been used for a variety of foods including marinades, beverages, baked goods, addition to sauces or simply sweetener to the fruits.

What is honey?

Honey is thick by nature, golden liquid. It is manufactured by bees from the nectar of lowering plants. Process of converting nectar into honey is called regurgitation (it is quite a difficult word to read, isn’t it?). Bees amazingly evaporate water from it by collective effort, and that is the process to produce the material we consume and know as honey. Bees’ existence is vital to us humans as they are performing the service of pollinating fruits, legumes, vegetables, and other types of food plants in their interest of producing honey.

Varieties

As you might have learned from the previous blog posts there are different varieties of honey. The main difference can be defined organoleptically as well as on the structural level, taste, different properties and medical activities. Main factor which distinguishes our sweet liquid from anything else is the type of flower that the bee frequents. For instance, acacia flowers will be light and watery. Dark wood however, will give us dark and rich honey. Other varieties include:

How to cook with Honey

To cook with honey, the best would be if you’d use some from a bottle or jar. To do all precise measurement, spray the spoon with cooking oil before dipping it into honey. Our sweet liquid will slide right off the sprayed or dipped spoon. Honey can be used as a sugar substitute, however it will amend the texture of food, especially baked goods in which it may become more moist, dense and rich in flavor.

What does honey suppose to taste like?

Honey is a viscous material, sticky and very sweet. It may taste a bit floral, fruity or woodsy. Depending on the type of the flower (or type of honey), it is possible to distinguish specific notes such as lavender, acacia flower or even forest bedding. To be able to determine different taste of honey, a side by side taste comparison can be a fun exercise.

Honey Substitute

As we already know, honey can be used as a substitute for sugar and it is sweet. The flavour and texture may not be the same when you make the swap. Proportions of the substitute are like that: for one cup of honey, you should use 1 and ¼ cup of sugar and ¼ cup of additional liquid such as water (it might be a certain type of alcohol as well) or a liquid that is in the recipe. Different type of swap is one cup of honey, can be exchanged by ½ cup of sugar and ¾ cup of corn syrup.

Where to buy honey?

The best place to buy honey is our store called York Bee. We are reliable and sustainable. We are putting lots of love and passion towards our product- so by buying it you are not just supporting me, but hundreds of thousands small insects called Bees.