When Life Hands You Granulated Honey... Make Honey Sweetened Lemonade

Every Saturday at the Worthington Farmer's Market, we get the question...

"What do you do when your honey gets all hard and thick at the bottom of the container?"

Yes, that's granulation.  A simple fact of life, a side effect of raw honey.  Like it or not, it will get thick and hard over time.  Sometimes this makes it very difficult to get out of the jar.  I don't mind the granulated texture, but some folks just insist their honey must be liquid.  

If you're one of the "I prefer liquid honey" folks, I recommend just using up the granulated honey and starting with a fresh jar of liquid honey, because any little tiny seed of granulated honey that is left in the jar will act just like..  well... a seed.  It will grow.  It's a tiny little crystal that will grow more tiny little crystals, even if you just spent 20 minutes putting your honey in a warm water bath to reliquify it.

My favorite ways to "use up" granulated honey is to make a big batch of granola, and to make a big pot of iced tea or lemonade.

So even though it is still pretty cold outside, I bring you a recipe for Honey Sweetened Lemonade.  Use up that granulated honey left in the jar and surprise your family with a refreshing pitcher of hand-squeezed lemonade.

Ingredients:

• 2 Lemons
• 2 TB Honey
• 1 Cup Hot Water (Keep it under 100 degrees to keep the honey raw)
• Large Pitcher of Ice

Squeeze the lemon juice into a pitcher, removing the seeds.   Use warm water to degranulate your honey (or if the honey is liquid, just mix it with the warm water).  I simply pour the hot water into the honey bottle and shake it until all the granulated honey is dissolved in the water.

I had about a TB of orange blossom honey that had been gifted to us by another beekeeper.  I filled the jar with warm water, and shook the jar until the granulated honey was dissolved.

Next, just add ice and cool water to taste.  Our lemons were pretty tangy, so I added extra fall honey to the pot to sweeten it, and filled about half of the pitcher up with ice to cool the water so it was ready to drink immediately.

Do you have any other favorite ways to use your granulated honey?  If so, please post it in the comments!  We'd love to hear about them.

-posted by Jayne

Blog Slacker, Yes. Lazy, No.

-Posted by Isaac

Yes, it has been a while. Months almost. And I'm truly sorry. I used this confusing new blog layout as an excuse. For maybe a week or two. But you can only milk computer illiteracy for so long. (It took Jayne five whole minutes to explain how to use Squarespace!) At some point I took a vacation out west, and returning home, forgot all about the habit of weekly blogging. Pleasant in some ways... One less thing, you know? But in other ways, I did actually miss it. Although I harbor grand delusions of you hanging on every word, anticipating every weekly report from the bee farm, I think the truth is that I get much more from this than you.

A sad truth or a happy truth? Hmmm.

It's healthy to journal and I think it's healthy to blog. I'll leave it at that.

So not much has changed since I quit blogging. (Aside from a slight increase in honey sales.) (And the sharp decline in hate mail.) We're still plugging along. Bees and projects and kids. And that's what you're getting today. A little catch-up from the last two months.

Holes in the pants, Seth? How long have you been doing this?

In the bee department, I'm happy to report that we have so far had the best winter survival ever. The bees are looking great and if we can weather the next month, we should come out with less than 10% loss.

Although most hives went into winter pretty heavy, by now the bees are making their way up through the stored honey and need some food directly above them to push through these March cold snaps.

So getting around, yard to yard, hive to hive, has been the number one priority. In a month, we'll be splitting the strong ones. Making increase.

But feeding bees is a pretty quick process. we can be in and out of a yard in 15 minutes. What to do with the rest of the day? Projects, of course.

This winter I got around to storage issues.

Barrel storage:

How to stack 700 lb honey barrels? Build a ramp... ahh ha!

For Bridger, this was less barrel ramp and more roller coaster.

And then I tackled the problem of container storage. For the longest time we've been walking cases of honey bottles from the barn. Not any more.

A large hanging platform did the trick.

Bridger volunteered to test carrying capacity.

Shelving and wall space really make things convenient.

And the more barn space we have available, the better.

We've been able to add another 400 supers and 600 hive bodies to the arsenal.  We're ready for those April splits.

The busyness continues. Building, painting, feeding and so on. But don't let me fool you into thinking it's all work. Last month Jayne let me mingle for a bit with an old love-- The West. A week in the Rockies. My next post I'm going to share a few cool photos. But no selfies!

Outside my window the wind howls and the leafless maples try to hold on to their swelling buds. March is coming in like a lion.

Hold on to your hats, Spring is only three weeks away!

Honey Apple Challah Recipe

Today I bring you a recipe for a delicious style of bread featuring honey and apples:   Honey Apple Challah  (Holla!)

For the challah dough:

1/2 cup lukewarm water

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

2 large eggs

4 cups flour

1 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon instant yeast

For the apple filling:

2 large apples, cored and diced into chunks

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 cup granulated sugar

1/8 cup honey

For the glaze:

1 large egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water

honey for drizzling (we recommend buckwheat!)

1) To make the dough: Combine all of the dough ingredients and mix and knead them, by hand, mixer, or bread machine, until you have a soft, smooth dough.  You may need to gradually add a little more flour if the dough continues to stick to the bottom of the bowl.

2) With a floured hand, remove the dough from the mixing bowl and gently knead into a ball. Place in a large, greased bowl, and turn once to coat. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. This will take approximately 2-2 1/2 hours.

3.) Lightly grease a 9-inch cake pan that has sides at least 2" tall.

4.) Combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl and mix to evenly coat the apples with the cinnamon, sugar, and honey.

5.) Gently deflate the dough and shape it into a 8" x 10" rectangle.  Spread half of the apple chunks down the center of the rectangle.  

6.)  Fold the long side of the dough over the apples and seal the edges.  Spread the other half of the apple chunks over the folded over dough.   Cover the other side of the dough over the apples and pinch to seal the edges.  

Don't forget to pinch to seal the edges!

7.  With a large, sharp knife, cut the dough into 16 uniform-size pieces.  The pieces will be messy, not uniform, and apples will spill out, which is okay.  Lay the dough chunks into the pan, doing your best to fit them in a single layer.

8.)  Cover and let rise in a warm place until the dough appears puffy and has risen a generous 2" high, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven.

See how messy it is?!  That's alright... it will taste great after it bakes, and you will love those apple chunks spilling out.

9.)  Whisk together the egg and water. When the dough has risen, brush the top with the glaze.

10.)  Bake at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until the top is browned and the internal temperature of the bread reads 190 degrees. Remove from the oven and let the bread rest in the pan 5 minutes before loosening the sides. 

11.)  Drizzle with honey just before serving.  We love it with robust Buckwheat honey!

adapted from King Arthur Flour and A Beautiful Mess Blog

Honey Oatmeal Bread Recipe

Today I share a quick and easy Honey Oatmeal Bread recipe.  I made this loaf in my bread maker, which means the sides are crusty all the way around- great for toasting or dipping in a hearty soup.

Quick and Easy Homemade Bread Recipe

• 1.5 cups of water

•  1.5 T of oil

•  6 T honey

• 1.5 tsp salt

• 3/4 cup oatmeal

• 3.5 cups flour

• 1.5 tsp yeast

If you have a bread maker, simply add the ingredients in the order listed and turn it on the regular bake cycle.  For my bread maker, this took 3 hours and 40 minutes.  And you're done!  

A New Look! Welcome to our new website... new blog!

-posted by Jayne

Here it is!  Our new website, new blog, a complete make-over for Honeyrun Farm in 2016.  This project has been many years in the works and I am extremely proud we are "live" with this new look.  You are now able to purchase our honey right here from our website.  We will continue to keep our Etsy store live, however, we hope to make this online store just as accessible as our Etsy store. 

Today Isaac is at the Worthington Farmer's Market while I stay home with the kids.  There was a level 3 snow emergency in our neighboring county, so our babysitter called off.  This has given me a few spare minutes to get in here and jot down a few thoughts.  The kids are outside playing in the snow (zip-lining in the snow, to be exact) so I have a rare moment to sit at the computer in peace.  

Here are a few goals for Honeyrun Farm (well, my side of Honeyrun Farm) in 2016:  (Isaac will obviously have a completely different set of goals in the beekeeping side of the business.)

1.  Increase our line of skin-care products (think: bath bombs, bath salts, lotions perhaps, maybe even get into more wholesale soap opportunities)

2. Increase wholesale beeswax candle opportunities.

3.  Attend more beekeeping/soap making/ small business conferences.  I hope to attend the Midwest Craft Con in February and possibly the Handcrafted Soap Guild conference.  Who knew there was a national soap making conference?!

Well- I am being called away to rescue a 4 year old who can't get down from our playhouse with snowy steps.  Thanks for checking in to our new websites and watch here for updates!