Make Your Own Creamed Honey
Creamed honey is often called whipped honey. If you wish to make your own, the first thing you need to know is this: Whipped honey is not whipped. You actually do not want to incorporate any air into so-called whipped honey.
Creamed honey is also called soft set honey, because that’s the required labeling in England. The UK Powers That Be think consumers would be confused by the term creamed honey, because it contains no cream.
What Is Creamed Honey?
Creamed honey is nothing more than crystallized honey. But in making it, you control the crystalization to ensure the sugar crystals are tiny, so the honey is smooth and creamy.
The advantage is that you can spread it on bread like jam, jelly, or other preserves. It won’t drip off, like liquid honey does. Otherwise it’s nutritionally exactly the same as the honey you start with.
To make your own creamed honey you need a starter to provide the right size seed crystals. The starter is really just creamed honey from some other source, for instance from a grocery store or a health food store. Select a starter honey with a flavor, thickness, and consistency you enjoy.
Why would you make creamed honey if you have to buy it to begin with? Maybe you have bees that give you a ready supply of honey. Or maybe, like me, you buy raw honey in bulk and want to make some of it into a spread.
The good news is, you need to buy starter only once. In the future you will use your own creamed honey to make successive batches.
If you’re a glutton for punishment, you can make a starter by crushing chunks of coarsely crystallized honey using a mortar and pestle. Keep crushing and grinding until the crystals are so fine that a sample feels velvety, not a bit gritty, on your tongue.
How to Make Creamed Honey
The purpose of the starter is to encourage your honey to make tiny, smooth crystals. Honey that crystallizes naturally is more likely to have large, gritty crystals. So the first step is to make sure your honey hasn’t already begun to crystallize naturally.
Freshly harvested honey contains no crystals. If the honey has been sitting around, a good idea is to warm it to ensure it hasn’t begun to develop crystals. Warm it to 120°F, even if you don’t actually see any crystals beginning to form.
Cool the honey to room temperature before adding the starter. You’ll get the creamiest spread by adding the starter when the honey has cooled to between 60°F and 75°F.
Add starter at the rate of 1 to 10. That’s about 1/2 cup of starter per 5 cups of honey. You could add more starter, if you wish, which will make the honey crystallize faster. If you add less starter, your honey spread will not be as smooth.
Carefully blend the starter and honey together, taking care not to create air bubbles. When the honey has been thoroughly blended, spoon it into jelly jars.
Storing Your Honey Spread
Cover the jars with lids and store them where the temperature is between 50°F and 70°F. At an ideal temperature of 55°F to 57°F, the honey should crystallize in about a week. At a temperature below 50°F or above 70°F, crystallization will be slower.
You can tell the honey has “creamed” when the color lightens, the texture is firm, and the honey doesn’t flow when you tip the jar. If the honey is a little softer than you like, put it in the fridge. If it gets too stiff to spread, leave it at room temperature.
Since creamed honey is already crystallized, it won’t develop large, gritty crystals that otherwise may occur naturally. It will keep for a long time, provided it isn’t heated. Heating will reliquify the honey, giving you exactly the same honey you started with.
