HONEY AS A FOOD 
473 
It goes as far as jam in this way. Honey 
is often served with rice, breakfast cereals, 
pancakes, and similar foods. Honey and 
cream is an ideal combination. Honey can 
be used to advantage in flavoring ice cream, 
gelatine creams, and delicate blanc-manges. 
Honey combines particularly well with or¬ 
anges, apples, bananas, peaches, and dried 
fruits. A delicious substitute for maple 
syrup is made by honey diluted with hot 
water, and the same syrup cold is superior 
to undissolved sugar for sweetening sum¬ 
mer drinks. This method of flavoring goes 
well with carbonated water. 
Fruits cooked in honey keep indefinitely. 
Bar-le-Duc currants, which sell ordinarily 
at a high price, are often made by cooking 
currants in honey. A brighter color is pres¬ 
ent in fruits so preserved than in those 
bottled in the usual way, as honey is a pre¬ 
servative. 
Indiscriminate substitution of honey for 
corresponding amounts of molasses or su¬ 
gar in recipes does not always give the 
expected results. The cook should keep in 
mind the difference in chemical nature be¬ 
tween honey and syrup before making up a 
recipe. Better make a small amount as a 
test before entirely filling a new recipe. 
Less soda is required when substituting 
honey for ordinary molasses. Experiments, 
in the government nutrition laboratory 
have shown that % level teaspoonful of 
soda is generally the amount required with 
a cupful of honey. In baking with sour 
milk and soda it is well to add a pinch of 
baking-powder to every pint of flour. 
Cakes will be lighter and finer grained if 
this is done. When baking-powder is sub¬ 
stituted for soda use a little more. 
When honey is used in a recipe less milk 
is required on account of the water in the 
honey. Compared with some of the “com 
syrups” on the market, honey is sometimes 
considered, pound for pound, more expen¬ 
sive, but where two or three cups of syrup 
will be required in a recipe only one of 
honey is necessary. The cake or cooky is 
improved in flavor and healthfulness with 
no increase in cost. 
Baked foods keep much better when 
prepared with honey instead of with sugar. 
It was formerly believed that cakes baked 
with honey absorb moisture from the air, 
but experiments have been made in the 
government nutrition laboratory which 
seem to show that the softness of the honey 
cake is due to the presence of the levulose 
in the honey. The fact that such cakes, tho 
soft, never become soggy, even tho exposed 
to moist air for a long time, seems to bear 
out this conclusion. Cakes should be al¬ 
lowed to “ripen” for a day or two at least, 
to develop the honey flavor. Honey fruit 
cakes, hermits, and the like are better at 
the end of two or three weeks. 
Cakes made with honey and butter will 
keep until the butter grows rancid. Cook¬ 
ies made with honey will not dry out. 
Dough itself containing honey will stay 
fresh indefinitely. The remarkable merits 
of goods baked with honey have led large 
wholesale bakers and cracker manufactur¬ 
ers to use quantities in their product. Some 
big firms buy honey annually by the car- 
load. The same power in retaining mois¬ 
ture and freshness is present in icings made 
with honey. The icing will last for months 
unimpaired in consistency arid taste, and is 
especially valuable for such cakes as fruit 
cakes which are to be kept for a long time. 
Orange, bitter almonds, lemon, and fruit 
flavors generally blend well with honey, as 
do also anise, cardamon, coriander, and 
other spicy seeds. , 
Contrary to directions for cooking honey, 
as given in some of the old cook books, it 
is seldom necessary to bring honey to the 
boiling-point and then skim and cool it. 
Bringing honey to the boiling-point is sure 
to give a burnt flavor. It should not be 
kept unnecessarily hot for any length of 
time. 
THE HONEY RECIPES. 
All of the recipes here given have been 
thoroly tested; but any recipe, while it 
may be successful in the hands of the ori¬ 
ginator, often needs modification when it is 
tried by others. All will give good results, 
but the following 20 recipes (pictured on 
page 475) are especially fine. In this con¬ 
nection particular attention is drawn also 
to the one for making cereal coffee. The 
ingredients used are so simple and the work 
of preparing consumes so little time that 
there is no one who should miss trying 
this delightful drink. It has a very rich 
flavor, especially when cream is used, with¬ 
out the scorched, bitter taste that most 
