As far back as Ancient Egypt, honey was used as a sweetener. It still replaces sugar in some of your favorite desserts. However, when substituting sugar with honey, you need to consider the following:
First, honey is an acid and will not fit in every recipe. And, even when it works as a substitute, you have to take into consideration the texture of the baked product. For example, when baking cookies, the amount of honey that can replace sugar varies with the type of cookie.
If you're baking crisp cookies, like gingersnaps, replace no more than one-third the sugar with honey. In brownies, honey can replace one-half the amount of sugar and up to two-thirds the sugar in fruit bars. Generally speaking, recipes that call for a half cup of sugar or less can be completely substituted by the same amount of honey.
When substituting honey for sugar, bear in mind the following:
- One cup of honey contains contains a quarter-cup of water. As a result, make sure that when you replace sugar with honey you reduce the liquid by a quarter-cup. For example, if a recipe calls for one cup of sugar, use one-cup honey and cut the liquid by a quarter-cup.
- Lower the oven temperature by 25 degrees when baking cakes and cookies to prevent over-browning.
- Like sugar, you can use honey to flavor fruits. However, make sure that you use a light honey, such as acacia honey, so that it doesn't overwhelm and mask the fruit flavor.
Honey can also replace sugar when canning fruits, making jellies and freezing crushed fruits.
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