Honey is one of nature's best gifts (if not the best). Between school, working as an environmental educator, and baking sweets, I've had the pleasure of getting up close and personal with honey bees and local honey.
I found myself back on Swarmbustin' Honey's website (West Grove, PA) this week thinking about their flavored honey (did someone say GARLIC honey?!). Although I've tried several different varieties of honey, I have yet to try flavoring my own. That's the inspiration for this post.
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| Extracting fresh honey for some excited taste testers at the 2011 Philadelphia Honey Festival. |
I spent some time visiting a number of websites, mostly from fellow bloggers, about how to flavor and infuse honey. You have two choices in the infusion process but both end in the same delicious results. Think mint honey in your tea, lavender honey on vanilla ice cream, orange honey on your morning scone, pepper honey on your cheese, or cinnamon honey on your oatmeal. If that doesn't sell you, than you might be hooked on the perfect little gift for a hostess or your next best skin product.
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| Germantown Hives: For best results, use local honey! |
Flavoring Ideas
Lavender: up to one cup of lavender buds
Vanilla: 2 split beans
Orange: zest of one orange (could also use lemon or grapefruit)
Mint: 1/4 to 1 cup loosely packed leaves
Ginger-Lime: 10 quarter-sized slices of peeled fresh ginger, zest of 2 limes
Cinnamon-Clove: 5 cinnamon sticks, 1 tablespoon cloves (let stand 24 hours before straining)
Hot Pepper: peppercorns or red pepper flakes
