One of my favorite things to do with my excess honey is to cream it and flavor with different lovely additions. My favorites include chocolate creamed honeys with orange, almond, or mint, plain creamed honey and of course vanilla bean infused honey. I'll provide recipes as we discuss how they are made.
Creaming honey is very easy and hard to get wrong. Raw honey will usually crystallize before you've used up a large amount of it, so creaming it is a way to stop it from having large crystals and keep it in a spreadable consistency for eating.
Plain Creamed Honey
First pick your favorite creamed raw honey at the supermarket or farmers market. I of course love Babes. It has the same flavor of my own home grown honey which is nice. Your finished creamed honey will be similar if not identical to your 'seed' cream honey. To every pint of raw liquid honey I add 2 Tablespoons of creamed honey. I mix it very well (use a hand blender or mixer). Add flavorings if wanted. Pour into your prepared jar, preferably a wide mouth container. I also save my leftover hexagonal jam jars because they are so pretty. Just make sure you can get a knife into the container for access to the honey---it isn't going to run out of the bottle any more. Place it in a cool place. In two days to 2 weeks it will harden and be a spreadable consistency. If you use more 'seed' creamed honey it will be faster in crystallizing.
Variations:
Chocolate Creamed Honey
To every pint of newly creamed honey add 2 tablespoons of your favorite unsweetened cocoa powder. Mix it very well because any not mixed well will rise to the top of your honey as it creams.
Mint Chocolate Creamed Honey
To every pint of newly chocolate creamed honey add 1/4 teaspoon of mint extract. Mix well and allow to sit somewhere cool to cream.
Chocolate Orange Creamed Honey
To every pint of newly chocolate creamed honey add 1 tsp orange zest. Mix well and allow to set.
Cinnamon Creamed Honey
To every pint of newly creamed honey add up to 2 Tablespoons of good quality cinnamon (I like mine strong). If you grind it yourself it's even nicer. You can get cinnamon stick in the grocer or if you're lucky you can get Mexican cinnamon stick from your local ethnic stores (lucky you in Yakima, Washington with your Fiesta Foods).
You can add ground cinnamon to a chocolate creamed honey but use 1 teaspoon per pint.
I've also been playing around with some Speculaas Spice blends. I really like it in the creamed honey. Speculaas is a type of gingerbread spice. I really like the blend that has a lot of ground anise seed. It reminds me of my Grandma Diemart's Peppernut cookies we make for Christmas.
Peppernut Creamed Honey
Like my cinnamon honey I add a lot of spice, again 2 T. per pint. Check out this recipe if you are interested in making this spice or creamed honey...My Favorite Speculaas Recipe
Vanilla Bean Creamed Honey
To each pint of newly creamed honey add 1 tsp of vanilla bean paste. You can find this ingredient at specialty stores and right now the Bulk Barn downtown here in Victoria is carrying it! This is one special honey. It maintains the delicate distinct flavors of both the vanilla and the honey. It's amazing, you gotta try this.
Or of course you can go to Babes Honey Farm here in Victoria and try out their Raspberry Chocolate Creamed Honey, Eggnog Honey etc. YUMMY!
