Saturday, January 7, 2012

A favorite baking ingredient

I am always trying to cook with natural or ingredients in their most raw state-for the nutritional benefits.  I have tried to redo a lot of recipes with success by changing out the oils or flours or sweeteners.  There is a little bit of tweaking that takes place, but for the most part they can be equally substituted and taste relatively the same.  For sweeteners we now use maple syrup from a farm in PA (thanks Beth!), local honey or on occasion we have raw sugar.
One of my favorite finds was granulated honey!  It is WONDERFUL.  I use it in all my baking and think that it is an easy peasy way to use more natural ingredients.  I have tried to research the health benefits of this process for turning liquid honey into dried pin sized granulars, but haven't found much yet-I will keep looking.  But until then if you are looking for a great substitute in your baking try granulated honey.  I buy ours from Bread Beckers and though shipping is high, if I split an order of 3-4 pails with friends it is worth it and well priced!  And a five gallon pail will last quite a long time.  One can also buy it from Amazon to give it a try.  Oh and remember that honey is naturally sweeter then sugar so use about 1/4-1/3 less then the recipe calls for if you do give it a try!

Happy Baking!

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