Using and Storing Honey

Using Honey

One pound of honey is about 1-1/3 cups. A 3-pound container holds about 4 cups honey.

Honey can be used in many ways. It makes a good spread for breads, muffins and biscuits and a tasty sandwich filling when mixed with dried fruits, peanut butter or cottage cheese. Honey can be used as a sweetener for fruits and beverages. It also can be used in any food that is sweetened, including frozen desserts, baked products, meat glazes, custards, frostings, pie fillings, cobblers, puddings, candied vegetables and salad dressings.

Some recipes use honey as the main sweetener; others use sugar. Honey can be used to replace some of the sugar called for in many recipes. Use these guidelines for cakes and cookies.

Cakes: One-half of the sugar in a cake recipe can be replaced with honey. For every 1 cup of sugar replaced, leave out 1/4 cup of liquid.

Cookies: The amount of sugar that can be replaced with honey varies with the kind of cookie being made. For brownies, half of the sugar can be replaced. For fruit bars, honey can replace two-thirds of the sugar called for in the recipe. Only one-third of the sugar can be replaced in gingersnaps.

When making either cakes or cookies, first mix the honey with the fat or the liquid. Then mix it thoroughly with the other ingredients. If this is not done, a soggy layer will form on the top of the baked product.

Products made with honey brown faster than foods made with other sweeteners. So when you bake products made with honey, set the oven temperature 25 degrees F lower than what is indicated in the recipe.

Storing Honey

Honey keeps best in a dry place at a cool temperature between 50 and 70 degrees F. Keep it in a tightly covered container so it does not absorb moisture or odors from the air.

Honey will start to form crystals as it gets older or if it is refrigerated. To make it liquid again, place the honey in an open container in a pan of warm water until it is clear. Do not have the honey in a plastic container when you set it in the warm water.

Health and Honey

Honey provides energy to the body. The amounts of nutrients in honey, however, are small when the number of calories in honey are considered.

Honey cannot be used as a substitute for cane or beet sugar in a sugar-restricted diet. Honey is composed of the same basic parts as regular sugar, and the body uses it in the same way.

Honey and products made with honey must not be fed to infants younger than one year, because honey can cause "infant botulism." Spores of the bacteria that cause botulism are present in honey. When these spores get into the intestinal tract of an infant, they grow and produce a toxin that results in serious illness and death. Remember that these spores in honey are not destroyed by regular cooking or baking methods.

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