Honey usage in recipes

[Bakersdozen]

I was thinking about recent recipes I have seen using honey.  My local bee club produced a recipe book with all recipes utilizing honey.  This was a fundraiser.  This got me to thinking how beekeepers will substitute as much honey, in place of sugar , as they possibly can, while maintaining desired results.   And, why not? 
I was recently searching recipes, for the holidays, and seemed to come across numerous recipes that using honey sparingly.  For example, many recipe directions say to drizzle honey over the top. 
While I am glad to see recipes using honey, I wondered why the general population treats honey like a condiment instead of a staple.  Is it the availability, convenience, cost, or lack of knowledge?  Or is this a public relations issue?  Or all of these things?
Perhaps I have too much time on my hands waiting for spring?    I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen.

[iddee]

Just guessing, but I would say cost and convenience. Sugar is so much easier and less messy, and me and most others are just plain lazy. Then there's 40 cents a lb. versus 6 dollars a lb.

[apisbees]

What Iddee said. Will also add that honey can change the consistency of the dish. It will also change the flavors. Due to differing flavors of honey the same recipe can have different tastes depending on honey used. In a banana loaf you can get some weird tastes form some of the honeys used, and in the North Okanagan we have pretty mild honey compared to other areas of the country and world. Different sweeteners are used to adjust the taste, Brown sugar, Molasses, Corn syrup, and Honey are used to enhance the flavor of a dish and some times can not be exchanged to a different sugar with out influencing the flavor. It is not just decreasing the amount of honey and liquids but also cooking temperature needs to be adjusted along with time to produce even cooking. Last year at the fair in the Class of loafs made with honey, there were quit a few entries that were over cooked on the out side or others that looked good on the out side but not cooked through all the way. In the 1980"s the British Columbia Honey Producers Association produced a Honey cook book It was a rework of recipes that the B.C. minister of agriculture published that contained honey in them but most also contained sugar also. A lady from Grand Forks (Joyce) spent a couple of years reworking the recipes to only use honey.

But by all means keep tying to rework your recipes to use all honey, and if you find a recipe that works Please share with the rest of us.

[Bakersdozen]

Last year at the fair in the Class of loafs made with honey, there were quit a few entries that were over cooked on the out side or others that looked good on the out side but not cooked through all the way.

But by all means keep tying to rework your recipes to use all honey, and if you find a recipe that works Please share with the rest of us.

I have a cookbook by Marjorie Johnson, Blue Ribbon Baking.  She has spent her adult life entering baked goods into local and state fairs.  She has a plethora of blue ribbons and grand champion ribbons to her credit.  She explains, in her book, that you always bake two of what ever you are going to enter.  She cuts into and tastes the extra of everything she intends to enter at the fair.  She also uses honey in the majority of her entries because cookies and such remain soft several days after baking.  As you know, apis, it may be several days before a judge actually judges an entry.

[apisbees]

At most fairs the, the entries are dropped off the day before or the morning of the fair for judging so that the items can be judged and ribbons and prize can be displayed next to the winning entries before the fair opens so  when the public comes to the fair, they can see who won.
In Armstrong entries can be dropped off Monday evening 5 to 9 and Tuesday morning 9 to noon then I judge from 1 to whenever usually about 6 P.m then arrange the display, place prizes and finish the prize book paperwork and adding up prize monies awarded to winning exhibitors.
You would think that people would taste and only exhibit thing that they were proud of.............. Last year we had cookies backed with honey it only requires 3 to be entered and they would have made more than just 3 cookies so they had some to sample at home before bringing 3 to the fair. One they used salt rather than sugar. another was a nice looking cookie with lavender sprinkled on top. It tasted like eating lavender soap. some people know that what they made did not turn out but it is made and they have paid there entrance fee and need to come to the fair to pick up their entrance pass to get into the fair while it is running. You get all kinds of people entering from the real competitive good bakers to a group of sisters that have a competition between themselves for which of them do the best at the fair. to ones hoping to land top 3 because they get honey for the prize (Donated by local beekeepers)

[Bakersdozen]

"Lavender soap"!!  That's funny! 
On the other hand, all this can be a good thing.  Entrants getting out of their comfort zone and trying new things, following through because they have something invested in the venture, sisters bonding together because of competition, and people willing to do something to receive a reward of honey are all good.