Making Creamed Honey

One of my favorite talks at Young Harris was a demonstration by Keith and Rosanne Fielder on how to make creamed honey.  I had some honey in Atlanta that had crystallized over the winter, so I couldn't wait to get home to try doing this myself.

Keith said that the honey judge looks for two things in tasting creamed honey:  they push the honey against the roof of their mouth with their tongue and do not want to feel any crystals.  Also they push the honey between their upper and lower front teeth with the same goal:  not to feel any crystals.  Keith had some of his own creamed honey there for us to taste - as always, he is super at it - I don't think mine will ever taste as good as his did.

To make creamed honey by the Dyce method, first you need a "seed" honey.  This would be a honey that is creamed that you buy or have saved from a previous batch of your own.  I bought some German creamed honey at Whole Foods that is smooth (like the judges want) and tastes really good.  I also like the taste of my crystallizing honey - it's a little sharp as my mid summer honeys tend to be, probably informed by tulip poplar.

Keith said that we could flavor the honey with flavoring oils but I like honey to taste like honey so I didn't do that.  He said that cinnamon is a popular flavor with his customers.

Creamed honey is supposed to be jarred in clear, straight-sided jars with solid tops (not two piece canning tops).  I had none of these and spent a whopping $2.50 per jar to buy some at the Container store.

Here are pictures of the process - the captions give you the directions (click on the little quotation symbol on the lower left to see the captions).