Honey is so versatile and has thousands of great applications when cooking with it. Baking with honey is great too, however, there are a few things you should be aware of — it’s not a simple substitution for sugar.
Here are 5 Useful Tips on Baking with Honey
- Honey is almost twice as sweet as sugar so when using it in a recipe to replace sugar, use less. For example, replace one cup of sugar with half a cup of honey.
- Honey is hygroscopic meaning it attracts water so, reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey added.
- Because honey is silky and not course like sugar, give a longer time for beating and more vigorous beating compared to using sugar in recipes, and when baking with honey.
- Add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda for each cup of honey used. This will neutralize honey’s acidity and help the food rise.
- Reduce the oven temperature by 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Honey batter becomes crisp and browns faster than sugar batter.
Here is my favourite way to use honey. Try this simple Honey, Lemon Drizzle Cake infused with honey, lemon and a hint of ground cardamom. It’s perfect with a cup of tea or coffee.
With Love,
Julie
Julie’s Honey Lemon Drizzle Cake
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter, softened
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup honey
- 4 eggs, at room temperature & beaten
- Juice and Zest of 2 lemons
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups flour, sifted
- 3 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- 1 pinch of salt
- For the drizzle
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 Tbsp Freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp melted butter
Instructions
- Pre heat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar and honey together until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom and salt and set aside.
- Add the lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla extract to the bowl of your stand mixer and then fold in the flour mixture until just combined and there is no flour remaining (do not overmix). Transfer to a greased loaf pan and bake for about 40 minutes or until golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
- For the drizzle: Combine the honey, butter, and lemon juice in a small saucepan set over medium-low heat. Heat until the butter is melted and stir until smooth.
- Poke your cake with a wooden skewer and make sure the skewer goes almost to the bottom of the cake and create a lot of small holes and then pour the drizzle syrup over the hot cake. Allow to cool in the loaf pan before slicing and serving. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 40 mins
