November 09, 2022
by Diana Rosen
Why use honey in baking? It’s delicious! Even better, honey has more vitamins and minerals than sugar, is slow to raise your blood sugar, and is available raw and unrefined.
Honey adds a more complex, earthier sweetness than sugar, plus its natural scent and taste of the floral, citrus or berry essence from the honey’s source. Fructose in honey is natural and more concentrated which is why it tastes sweeter than sugar. Add to that, it’s a totally natural ingredient created by the workhorses of nature, the honeybee.
Experimenting with honey in baking is fun, and easy, provided you recognize a few differences between honey and the more typical sweetener, granulated sugar.
The first step is to recognize that the thick viscosity of honey requires that you prepare your utensils. Use nonstick measuring cups and measuring spoons or coat them with a neutral oil like grapeseed or even Crisco. That increase accuracy of the measurements and make cleanup so much easier.
Substitution Ratios
Sugar is a dry ingredient and honey is a thick liquid so it’s necessary to convert quantities of sugar in recipes to smaller ones for honey.
In general, honey can be substituted for sugar up to one cup in equal amounts when making most yeast breads, muffins, pancakes, and waffles.
However, sugar serves a vital function in baking when the recipe calls for creaming the batter with butter or trapping air in the batter. If this is part of your recipe’s directions, adjust this way: for 1 cup sugar, use ½ cup sugar and only ¼ cup honey.
For all other baked goods, a better rule is to substitute each requested cup of sugar with ½ to 2/3 cup honey. If a recipe calls for more than 1 cup of sugar, reduce the ratio of honey to 2/3 to ¾ cup of honey. When in doubt, use less honey.
Flavor and Color
Just as you would not substitute brown sugar for white sugar casually, be aware that both the color and the sweetness level varies among honeys.
The lighter the color of the honey usually means it is less sweet than the darker varieties. For example,
Tupelo is lighter than Clover which is lighter than
Sourwood.
Liquids, Eggs, and Baking Soda
Reduce the liquid in a baking recipe because honey is a liquid itself and approximately 20% water. For each cup of liquid, the recipe requires, reduce the amount of honey by ¼ cup.
Whenever your cookie recipes call for eggs, increase the flour by 2 tablespoons for each cup of honey used. This is critical if there are no other liquids in the ingredients list.
The acidic quality in honey, which is usually 3.9 on the pH scale, needs a little baking soda to balance it in most baked goods recipes. Use ¼ to 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda for every cup of honey used. This allows the baked goods to rise properly by balancing out the acidity in the honey. If the recipe calls for baking soda, you should still add at least ¼ teaspoon more to further insure a nice rise.
Oven Temperature
Honey increases the speed of browning for pastries because it naturally caramelizes and burns at a quicker rate than granulated sugar.
This is solved easily be reducing the oven temperature 25°F. The first time you use each recipe, keep an eye on the oven to make sure that the lower temperature is working and that the time to bake is appropriate; your recipe may need less time to completely bake.
Crystallization
Raw honey crystallizes naturally and it doesn’t matter if using it to drizzle over ice cream or a biscuit.
However, when baking, all those crystals and lumps need to be smoothed out to make it work well with the other ingredients. Here’s how to de-crystalize honey:
• Heat a small pan of water until hot, but not boiling.
• Remove the lid from the honey jar, and place the jar into the heated water.
• Take care to stir the honey frequently as the honey reverts to its natural liquid state.
• This is preferable to microwaving which can compromise the vitamins and minerals in honey. If you just don’t have the time or patience to heat the jar on the stove top, heat the unopened jar in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time. Check, stir, repeat until the consistency you want is reached.
Experiment with a variety of honeys to learn which flavor you like best and which is easiest to use in your favorite baking recipe. And, save a little for your tea or coffee. Yum!