I bought a rather eclectic cookbook filled with not so ordinary vegetarian recipes recently titled Naturally Vegetarian. Recipes and Stories from my Italian Family Farm by Valentina Solfrini. I have never found an Italian cookbook dedicated entirely to vegetarian dishes until this one. In Valentina’s book is where I found this beautiful article on flavored honeys.

Since I had loads of honey that I had bought from a local beekeeper, I had the luxury of using some of that honey to play around with flavored honeys. I made a variety of flavors, some turned out better than others.

Here are a few pics of my flavored honeys

Cardamom Flavored Honey

The cardamom flavor actually comes through in the honey. Cardamom honey tastes wonderful in good old-fashioned black tea ☕️.

Lemon Flavored Honey

I was excited to taste the lemon-flavored honey but I have to say I was disappointed. It tasted like lemon-flavored medicine. This wasn’t one of my favorite flavored honeys, however if you like lemon and honey in your tea give this flavored honey a try.

Orange and Saffron Flavored Honey

I made an orange flavored honey with Murcott tangerines that my friend Elaine had given me. These tangerines work perfectly as they are small, that way when cut into thin slices they fit perfectly in a jam jar.

If you leave the orange honey out on the counter for about 3-4 weeks, the saffron flavors the honey delicately and the orange releases its juices making the honey less sweet. Because of the orange juice that is released the honey gets thinner and makes a wonderful drizzle over Greek yogurt and even to drizzle over cakes. An added bonus is that the orange slices including the rind become nice and tender. This has to be my favorite flavored honey.

I used the soft orange slices and the honey it was in to make orange saffron honey ice cream (recipe to follow).

Give making flavored honeys a try. The fun part of this recipe is experimenting with various flavors of your choice.

Honey
Extract from poet Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet from buzzaboutbees.net

And now you ask in your heart, 
“How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?” 

Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower.

But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. 

For to the bee, a flower is a fountain of life.
And to the flower, a bee is a messenger of love.
And to both bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. 

People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

🐝 🌼🌸 Honey. Sweet Honey 🐝 🌼🌸