Honey guide

Heating Honey: In Tea and When Baking

Honey can handle warmth, though its aroma and texture will change. For tea, let the drink cool slightly first, and when baking, simply use a little less honey than sugar and a little less liquid.

What Happens When You Heat Honey?

Warming honey makes it runnier. However, strong or prolonged heat changes both its aroma and colour: delicate floral notes fade away, and the honey can darken, taking on a caramelised or slightly bitter taste. If you want to preserve the aroma, it's best to warm honey gently, for instance in a water bath at around 40 degrees. This is also how you can turn set honey back to liquid, as described in the article Honey Crystallises .

Honey in Tea

A hot drink and honey make a wonderful pairing. To keep the aroma intact, there's a simple trick: let your tea cool down a little first, then stir in the honey. It dissolves perfectly well in lukewarm tea too.

Mild varieties such as Acacia honey and Linden blossom honey won't overpower the tea. Stronger varieties such as Forest honey add extra depth to spiced teas and milk. A few ideas to try: Spiced Tea with Orange and Clove and Spiced Milk with Cinnamon.

Honey in Baking

Honey sweetens more strongly than regular sugar, adds its own aroma, and keeps baked goods moist for longer. It does, however, brown more quickly. Here are a few rules of thumb to guide you, which may vary depending on the recipe:

• Quantity: use around three-quarters of the sugar amount in honey, then taste and adjust.
• Liquid: as honey is liquid itself, reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe slightly.
• Temperature: as honey browns faster, lower the oven temperature a little and keep an eye on your bake, covering it if needed.
• Variety: choose mild varieties for light bakes, and dark, spicy varieties for gingerbread and spiced cakes.

It's best to start with a tried-and-tested recipe. Our guide Baking and Sweetening with Honey goes into this in more detail.

Recipes to Try

• Moist honey cake
• Moist honey gingerbread
• Baked Apple with Honey
• Honey Caramel Sauce

You'll find more ideas in our Recipe overview and in our Advent and Christmas Recipes.

Honey or Sugar?

Honey and regular sugar differ in four key ways: honey sweetens a little more strongly, brings its own distinctive aroma, binds moisture, and makes baked goods brown more quickly. That's why honey is especially well suited to cakes and bakes that should stay moist, and less so to very light, crispy bakes. Sugar has a more neutral taste. Which ingredient works best really comes down to the recipe and your own personal taste.

Honey for dressings, marinades and glazes

Honey is also a favourite in savoury cooking: mixed with mustard and vinegar, it makes a simple dressing like in the recipe Honey mustard dressing, and with soy sauce, a marinade. For glazes, add honey towards the end of cooking so it doesn't burn.

Honey in muesli and yoghurt

Not every use needs heat. In cold dishes like yoghurt, quark, muesli or porridge, honey keeps its full aroma. A single spoonful is often enough, it tends to sweeten more than you'd expect. Give this a try Honey porridge or Honey quark dessert.

An important note

Honey should not be given to infants under one year old, not even in tea or baked goods. You can find out more on the page From what age can children eat honey?.

Frequently asked questions