Honey as a Sugar Substitute

Honey is a sweet treasure from Mother Nature. To use it in cooking and baking in place of sugar can take some practice. Here are some tips to achieve success.

• For baking, start with recipes written specifically for honey instead of sugar.
• For each cup of honey used to replace sugar, decrease the other recipe liquids by ¼ of a cup.
• To make measuring and the pouring of honey easier, coat the inside of a measuring cup with a thin layer of cooking oil or water.
• Honey is acidic (pH 3.70-4.20) and sugar is neutral (pH 7.0). To counteract the acidity of honey, add ½ teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of honey used in the recipe.
• When substituting sugar with honey in baked foods, decrease the oven temperature by 25 degrees. Honey tends to make the product brown (burn) at higher temperatures.

Sources: http://ucfoodsafety.ucdavis.edu/files/279185.pdf and https://bit.ly/2El7NVb