The best honey for cooking
A cheap one, almost always. Heat destroys the aromatic compounds that make an expensive honey expensive, and what survives is the structural character a dark honey has anyway.
The rule behind this list
Honeys the catalogue lists as suited to both baking and glazing, at moderate intensity or stronger — the ones with enough non-volatile character to survive heat.
What these have in common
Cooking with honey is a chemistry problem with a flavour footnote. Fructose caramelises from around 110 °C, well below sucrose, which is why honey browns early and burns easily. Prolonged heat also strips the volatile aromatics that distinguish one floral honey from another. What survives an oven is malt, molasses, mineral depth and bitterness — the non-volatile character of the dark honeys — which is why buckwheat, chestnut and honeydew come through a cake recognisably and acacia does not.
Where to start
Buckwheat for baking, where its malt and molasses read clearly. A robust multifloral for glazes and marinades, where it is doing browning chemistry rather than adding flavour. Keep the good jar for the table.
What this group is not for
Anything where honey is added off the heat — dressings, finishing drizzles, baklava syrup, custards. Those are the places to use a fine honey, and using a cooking honey there wastes the opportunity rather than saving money.
The honeys, by intensity
Grouped by how much a honey asserts itself, which decides more choices than origin, colour or price. Within a band the order is catalogue order — there is no ranking here and none is implied.
Moderate — 19 honeys, showing 9
- Blackbutt honeyLight amberWarm and caramelised with a light resinous edge — one of the milder eucalypt honeys and a good introduction to the group.
- Spotted gum honeyLight amberWarm and caramelised with a light resinous lift and a rounded finish — a middle-weight eucalypt honey and a very usable one.
- Sunflower honeyExtra light amberStraw, beeswax and pollen, with a slightly waxy mouthfeel and a fresh, faintly herbal edge.
- Wildflower honeyExtra whiteVaries with the season and the landscape. Pale spring crops are floral and light; late-summer crops darker, fruitier and stronger.
- Blackberry honeyExtra light amberWarm, mellow and gently fruity, with a soft jammy note and a hint of the fruit without any of its sharpness.
- Thistle honeyExtra light amberWarm and herbaceous with a hay-and-spice character and a faint bitterness at the end.
- Kāmahi honeyExtra light amberButtery and caramel-sweet with a faint herbal-resinous edge and a smooth rounded body.
- Aster honeyExtra light amberStrong and slightly sharp with a hay-and-herb character and a distinct sour edge that fades as the honey ages.
- Sycamore honeydew honeyAmberMalty and mildly sweet with a savoury, faintly smoky depth and a mineral finish — less resinous than the conifer honeydews and more caramelised.
Pronounced — 32 honeys, showing 9
- Almond blossom honeyLight amberDistinctly bitter with a marzipan aroma over it — one of the few honeys where bitterness arrives before sweetness, and an acquired taste even among people who like bitter honeys.
- Purple loosestrife honeyAmberStrong and tangy with a distinct green herbal note over dark caramel — an unusual profile that some tasters find sharp and others find refreshing.
- Persimmon honeyAmberRich and fruity with a dried-date depth and a warm caramel base — one of the more distinctive minor American varietals and genuinely reminiscent of the ripe fruit.
- Messmate honeyAmberStrong and resinous with a malty depth and a faintly medicinal eucalypt lift — assertive and unmistakably Australian.
- Bloodwood honeyAmberStrong and malty with a resinous depth and a distinct woody astringency — one of the more assertive Australian honeys.
- Bottlebrush honeyAmberStrong and malty with a resinous depth and a faint medicinal lift — assertive, and a surprise to anyone who expects a garden shrub to make a mild honey.
- Dandelion honeyLight amberSharp, pungent and unmistakably strong for a spring honey — a chamomile-and-hay aroma with an animal note behind it that fades as the honey ages.
- Mountain honeyLight amberAromatic, complex and warm, with a herbal-resinous depth and considerably more going on than a lowland multifloral. It tastes of a landscape rather than of a flower.
- Goldenrod honeyLight amberStrong, warm and spicy, with a hay-and-clove character and a slightly astringent finish. Assertive in a way that surprises people expecting an ordinary golden honey.
Intense — 6 honeys
- Tree heath honeyAmberStrong, malty and slightly bitter, with a burnt-caramel depth and a woody finish — assertive in a way that divides opinion sharply.
- Buckwheat honeyDark amberMalt, molasses and wet straw, with a savoury, almost animal depth. The most polarising honey in general production.
- Avocado honeyDark amberDark, buttery and molasses-rich with a savoury, almost salty edge. Nothing about it suggests the fruit.
- Carob honeyAmberDark, malty and distinctly savoury with a fermented, almost cheesy note that people either find fascinating or cannot get past.
- Mahua honeyDark amberHeavy and molasses-like with a fermented dried-fruit note and a faintly smoky finish — one of the more challenging Indian honeys and among the most distinctive.
- Holm oak honeydew honeyDark amberDark, savoury and barely sweet, with malt, liquorice and a genuine salt-mineral depth. As far from what people expect honey to be as anything in the catalogue.
Deciding between two of them
- Pine vs fir honeydew honey — The two great conifer honeydews of Europe, from opposite ends of the continent. Both are made by bees collecting insect excretions rather than nectar, and they are the closest thing honey has to terroir.
Narrow it further
- Honey finder
Which honey should I buy for what I actually want to do with it?
- Pairing finder
I am eating this — which honey goes with it?
- Flavour selector
I like this taste — which honeys have it?
- Honey comparison
How do these honeys actually differ, beyond colour?