Chef’s Pantry: Distinct Flavor & Color Make Honey a Winner

Honey starts as flower nectar collected by bees, which gets broken down into simple sugars that are stored inside the honeycomb before collection.

After the honey is extracted, it’s strained to remove any remaining wax or other fragments of nature. Remaining is the golden sweet nectar of the bee-gods.

Today honey is used in many application and is a mainstream product found in every grocery store. Honey isn’t just honey… there are many types; clover, wildflower, orange blossom and blueberry for example. All of which gain a distinct flavor and color characteristic based on and derived from the flowers in which the bees collect the nectar. Also common is the infusion of flavors into honey… infused honey, while infused honeys often use herbs and citrus; elevated flavors like truffle and saffron can be found for a high-end wallop of natural sweetness.

Bee creative with honey:

• as a flavor element in most sauces, soups and salad dressings
• as a honey toffee
• in ice cream (truffle honey ice cream!) and baked goods
• as a marinade
• as a glaze
• a natural sweetener
• honey comb as an accoutrements to cheese
• the list goes on and on