I have checked the archives looking for a recipe that uses honey in pumpkin pie instead of white sugar. Does anyone do that or have a recipe? Have you tried Whole wheat pastry flour or another kind instead of white flour? Thanks for any ideas. Has anyone substituted goat milk instead of canned milk? Trying to use less store items and more of our homestead produced items. Mary

-- Mary (Mary@home.com), November 15, 2001

Answers

I cook and bake with honey all the time, most of the time you can by with using about 1/2 the amount of sugar called for as the honey required in a recipe. Start with that amount and work up to 2/3 of the required sugar as honey maximum.

I always use soy milk instead of dairy products, so I don't see why goat's milk wouldn't work as well.

Pie crusts turn out best as a half and half mixture of whole wheat and unbleached flours, I use only organic flours so using half unbleached doesn't bother me. Sure wouldn't use the white poison known as regular bleached white flour, yuck!!! Anything that will kill ants I try to stay away from.

When cooking and baking with honey, educe your oven temp down by 25 degrees and allow slightly longer baking times, test for doneness with a toothpick. Will come out clean when done.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), November 15, 2001.

Annie, do you mean 1/2 regular sugar, 1/2 honey, or just honey in 1/2 of the amount of sugar the recipe calls for?

-- Christine Young (Christine_Young@Brown.edu), November 15, 2001.

Honey in lesser amount than and instead of all regular sugar - 1/2 to 2/3 is about right - experiment for your taste - the type of sugars in honey taste sweeter than just plain old sucrose.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 15, 2001.

Christine, what Don said :-) .

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), November 15, 2001.

From the National Honey Board:

For best results, use recipes developed for using honey. When substituting honey for granulated sugar in recipes, begin by substituting honey for up to half of the sugar called for in the recipe. With a little experimentation, honey can replace all the sugar in some recipes.

When baking with honey, remember the following:

Reduce any liquid called for by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used. Add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda for each cup of honey used. Reduce oven temperature by 25° F to prevent over-browning. Because of its high fructose content, honey has a higher sweetening power than sugar. This means you can use less honey than sugar to achieve the desired sweetness.

When measuring honey, coat the measuring cup with non-stick cooking spray or vegetable oil before adding the honey. The honey will slide right out.

A 12-ounce jar of honey equals a standard measuring cup.

-- (LauramLeek@yahoo.com), November 16, 2001.