Q: How do I use honey in baking?

Dear Baker: Honey will provide some special attributes to your baked goods - golden crust color, flavor, moistness, and moisture retention in the product. Honey's flavor varies with the type of flower the bees worked to produce the honey. These flavors include clover, orange, sage, sunflower, or mixed flower. Choose a flavor to suit your end product.

Tips for using honey:

• You can use a one-for-one substitution of honey for sugar in most yeast breads and muffins, pancakes, or waffles
  
  
• When substituting honey in recipes calling for 1 cup or more of sugar, reduce the other liquids in the recipe by ¼ cup for every 1 cup of honey
  
  
• In cookie recipes using eggs or recipes with no other liquids, increase the flour by 2 tablespoons for each cup of honey
  
  
• Add ½ teaspoon baking soda for every 1 cup of honey used
  
  
• To avoid overbrowning, reduce the oven temperature by 25ºF if it is a recipe not designed for honey as an ingredient
  
  
• Granulated sugar may play a critical role (creaming, holding air in a batter) in some recipes. If substituting with all honey is not successful, you may choose to substitute half the sugar with honey
  
  
• Because of its high fructose content, honey is sweeter than sugar. If a product is too sweet with a one-for-one substitution, reduce the amount of honey by using ½ to ¾ as much honey as white sugar in the recipe
  
  
• Oil or spray the liquid measuring cup to make it easy for the honey to slide out after measuring
  
  
• Re-liquefy crystallized honey by removing the container's lid, and warming the container in very hot water, stirring every 5 minutes. OR, microwave on HIGH for 15 to 60 seconds, making sure the container is microwavable
  
  
• One 12-ounce jar honey = one standard measuring cup

Don't forget the honey butter or flavored honeys for a drizzle on baked goods, ice creams, puddings or other desserts. (See Ask the Experts … About Storage.)