What should I make with all this honey?

December 28, 2021 8:37 AM

I was gifted a giant container of honey from a neighbor who keeps hives. What should I bake with it?

So far I’ve made some glazed honey bars that I brought over to said neighbor, and they were fantastic, and I’m on vacation until next week so I decided it would be fun to bake a bunch! Preference for unfussy recipes; I’m happy to mix together many components but less happy to say, braid dough or lattice a pie top, if that makes sense.

No dietary restrictions at all; give me your best honey forward recipes!

posted by nancynickerson to Food & Drink (29 answers total)

Torrone! Such as this recipe?
posted by papergirl at 8:42 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

For starters, so jealous!!

Mead? It's pretty easy even if you've never done any kind of homebrewing.

Do you like baklava? That's usually served with lots of honey. A lot of Mediterranean desserts overall are full of honey.

Look up different infused honeys and how you can use them.

And don't limit your honey experiments to the kitchen. Honey is great for your skin, plus the luxury of slathering it on your body or face is the best.

Here's a good link for dessert recipes.
posted by mermaidcafe at 8:42 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

The NYT Cooking's recipe of the day uses 1/2 cup of honey and looks amazing! Rosemary Honey Almond Tart.

Might be paywalled for you. Memail me if you're interested, and I can send you the instructions.
posted by hydra77 at 9:07 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

I would infuse some of it with things like ginger, cinnamon, etc. Also, it doesn't spoil so it should last you forever!
posted by Ochre,Hugh at 9:11 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is a tasty and honey-heavy recipe: honey and rosemary cakes.
posted by Lluvia at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

This honey cake (also from the NYTimes) is easy to make and fantastic - it's now our go-to for Rosh Hashana: Red wine honey cake with plums
posted by Mchelly at 9:29 AM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's the right time of year for melomakarona.
posted by each day we work at 9:32 AM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

You can ferment some garlic in it.
posted by neroli at 9:45 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

Steirische Lebzelten (Styrian honey Lebkuchen)
Ingredients

500 gram rye flour
2 tbsp Lebkuchen spice (cinnamon, clove powder, ginger, cardamom, allspice, ground up together)
1 teaspoon baking soda
50 gram butter
250 gram honey
2 eggs
some water (around 2 tablespoons)
Egg for brushing

preparation

1. mix the dry ingredients (flour, Baking soda, spices).
Mix the honey, melted butter and eggs with a little water until smooth.
If the honey is too tough, it can be warmed up easily. If you prefer it sweet add Up to 100 Gram sugar.

2. Make a dimple in the flour and slowly mix the honey mixture with the flour to form a medium-firm dough. Add a little water or flour as needed.
If the gingerbread dough is too firm, it cannot be rolled out at all, but if it is too soft, cracks occur when rolling/flattening.

3. Let the gingerbread dough rest in a cool place overnight, covered or wrapped in foil.

4. The next day, roll out the dough with a rolling pin on the floured work surface, not too thin, and cut out with shapes or in rectangles with a sharp knife.
Brush the gingerbread with a beaten egg and bake in the oven at approx. 180 ° Celsius top and bottom heat for about 10 to 12 minutes, depending on the size.
They should be slightly brown at the top but also still slightly soft to the touch. This way they will be soft and chewy on the inside once cooled.

Once your cookies are done baking, remove them from the oven and place them on a cooling rack to fully cool.

You can cover them with chocolate or sugar icing.
When your gingerbread cookies are fully cooled, you can prepare the glaze.

For the chocolate glaze use a semi sweet baking chocolate. Melt in a shallow, wide bowl in the microwave, a shallow bowl makes it easy to dip the top of the cookies in later.

For white glaze, mix powdered sugar with a bit of water and mix everything with a spoon until there are no more lumps.

You’ll want the consistency to be quite thick so that the cookies will get a nice glaze.
For detailed instructions on glazing look here
posted by 15L06 at 9:50 AM on December 28, 2021

I'd get a big bag of poppy seeds, ground if possible (if not, you can use a coffee grinder at the start or a meat grinder once they're soaked). Soak them in hot water or hot milk until well swollen, pour off remaining liquid if there is any. Add your favourite dried and candied fruit, cut up if big, flaked almonds, raisins, crushed nuts, whatever you like - it can be up to half the volume of the soaked poppy seeds or more. Add enough honey to make it a sticky paste of rich goodmess.

This is a wonderful filling for yeast dough (strudel or cinnamon roll style or whatever shape you like), sponge roll, cookies, anything baked. You can bake it into a tart or pie. Add boiled wheat berries and you have kutia. Add small pasta shapes instead and you have kluski z makiem. Anything you make with the poppy seed paste is supposed to bring immense luck in the new year, so you have a few days left to get the full benefit!
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:20 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Russian Honey Cake is what I'm making on Thursday. It's delicious, but the recipe might be on a fussy side, because it involves making burnt honey, and then baking a number of thin cake layers.
posted by ringu0 at 10:27 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Not baking, technically, but if you happen to have an ice cream maker, this honey ice cream is exquisite.
posted by dizziest at 10:49 AM on December 28, 2021

Medieval Honey Cake. French honey cakes. Medieval mixed pickles. (I've tried the first two but not the last.)
posted by paduasoy at 11:06 AM on December 28, 2021

Also!! This is not very unfussy and probably is a sticky nightmare in practice but I was amazed and delighted to learn from Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food about Teiglach, which is strips of pastry actually cooked in honey . Like the honey is the cooking medium! I've never made it but hope to one day.
posted by Lluvia at 11:20 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

You can make a pecan pie and substitute honey for corn syrup. This recipe uses a cup of honey.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:33 AM on December 28, 2021

I was amazed and delighted to learn from Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food about Teiglach, which is strips of pastry actually cooked in honey .

My mother-in-law makes these every year - happy to get her recipe (brought back from Israel via pre-war Lithuania, if memory serves) if anyone is interested. Not sure how much work they are to make, but I know it's one of the few family recipes of hers that my husband's never attempted.
posted by Mchelly at 11:40 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

Unless it’s stored open in a very humid environment, honey is never going to spoil. It may crystalize, but you can warm it up and use it.

By all means, bake with it and have fun! But don’t feel like you have to use it right away.
posted by vitout at 11:47 AM on December 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

My mother-in-law makes these every year - happy to get her recipe (brought back from Israel via pre-war Lithuania, if memory serves) if anyone is interested.

Yes, please!
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:39 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also came to suggest mead.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:58 PM on December 28, 2021

Pain d'Epices is a French honey and spice bread that is similar to old-fashioned gingerbread (the cake, not the cookies). My go-to is from the blogger Clotilde Dusolier, but she took her own recipe down off her blog to put it in a cookbook; but this person put her own "slightly-adapted-from" version back up online. (If you do 2 cups of all-purpose flour instead of a cup of regular and a cup of whole wheat flour you'll have Clotilde's version.)

And you should try it because it uses about 2/3 a cup of honey at a go and because that thing is good.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:32 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is one of my favorites: Halvah!
posted by spinifex23 at 3:37 PM on December 28, 2021

Toast with honey.
Peanut butter & honey sandwiches.
Lemon juice, honey, & hot water when you might have a cold, or just need comfort. Maybe some ginger. Bourbon or other alcohol optional, but will put you right to sleep.
posted by theora55 at 3:51 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Truffle honey!
posted by cyndigo at 5:39 PM on December 28, 2021

I've really enjoyed this recipe for Salty Honey Pie from the Four and Twenty Blackbirds cookbook. (It tastes somewhat like chess pie, if that's something you're familiar with.)
posted by purpleclover at 8:06 PM on December 28, 2021

I buy honey 60lb at a time from a wonderful operation at our local famers market. I'm a homebrewer, and use it to make mead. It's easy and tasty, though it takes some time. I can confirm, though, that honey basically keeps forever. Even if it eventually crystallizes on you, you can re-melt it and keep on going. I still have some alpenflower honey from gosh, 5/6 years ago stored in its foodservice bucket and it is still completely fine. Don't feel pressured to use it all at once!
posted by xedrik at 8:03 AM on December 29, 2021

This recipe is in my files; I used it a lot when I could get delicious local honeys like blueberry. Let me know if you need more details because it's in my shorthand.

Honey Cake

From Farmhouse Cookery

3 oz butter
3 oz sugar
Cream them together.

2 eggs, 4 oz honey - add and then mix.

8 oz self-raising flour, 1 tsp baking powder - add slowly.

Mix well.

Bake 45-50 minutes at 350.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 8:30 AM on December 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

Okay - it's long but here's the teiglach recipe (with my sister-in-law's notes in italics). Not sure it counts as unfussy though!

Dough

3 eggs + 1 yolk
Scant 2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 tsp. Vanilla

Syrup

2 cups honey
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water *

At the end, 1 tsp ginger + 1/2 cup boiling water

1. Mix all dough ingredients together. Add in flour slowly, see how much is necessary to form dough. It should be (very) slightly sticky - but smooth enough to knot (this makes almost no sense, until you feel the dough). (I see that I wrote: start with paddle, then switch to dough hook). Place on warm plate, covered, for ~20 minutes (its not for rising, it just makes the dough easier to handle)

2. To knot take about 1/4 of the dough and make a thick snake. Cut into small pieces. Take a piece, and make it into a snake. Form an ‘ayin’ (the Hebrew letter) with the snake and join ends in the middle. Set aside on a tray. Repeat until you finish the dough.

3. When the knots are ready, make the syrup. Place all ingredients into large (I prefer wider rather than taller) pot. Bring to a boil carefully. The color should be pale, and the bubbles small, and there should be ‘head’ (like beer) of bubbles that is stable, but it shouldn’t be a strong boil. Slowly drop in knots (make sure the boil is stable). It needs about 40 minutes cooking time.* This step requires a lot of patience, because you can’t leave it - you have to make sure it boils nice and slowly, and doesn’t burn or die down. After ~10 min, you should see the (very white) taigelach coming to the top. If its not cooking evenly, you can stir (very gently, not to loose the head!) with a wooden spoon.

4. When everything starts turning brown, and the bubbles get larger, its time to stop. Add the teaspoon of ginger and mix (you don’t have to worry about the head at this stage, as there probably isn’t much anyway). Pour the half cup of boiling water in *very* carefully and quickly - it makes everything bubble and jump (I usually dump it in standing as far as I can and move my hand out of the way as fast as possible - do NOT lean over the pot!!). When you can touch the pot (after a few seconds) pour out into a baking pan to cool (don’t let it sit at this stage, you have to pour because the boiling water is to loosen the honey syrup). Ima uses one of her baking pans with the high sides - I think it helps, as it traps the heat. I don’t have one that size, so I’ve used disposable, though the results are better if I use two (the bottom one stays clean), which gives it extra thickness. They always shrink after, it’s just a question of how much.

A test for good taigelach (aside from tasting) is to dump one into a glass of water - it should float (that means its dry enough.)

You can use the leftover honey (after the taigelach are mostly gone) for tea. Instant lemon-ginger tea with taigel honey!

*My sister in law says she uses 3/4 cups water, so the water won't boil too fast / make them collapse.
posted by Mchelly at 8:48 AM on December 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

Thank you, Mchelly!
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:31 AM on December 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

Ms Vegetable, that looks delicious; may I ask for a couple clarifications?
1) What size cake pan do you prefer, and how should it be prepared? Greased, floured?
2) 8oz of self-rising flour; is this by weight, or an 8oz (1 cup) measuring cup, loosely filled and leveled?

Thank you!
posted by xedrik at 1:29 PM on December 29, 2021