I Love Honey

I made that 100-mile Upside Down Pear Cake on Sunday and I must proclaim its deliciousness to the heavens!  So yummy, so sweet, and I felt GREAT about it because every single ingredient except ONE came from within 100 miles.

That one ingredient was a single teaspoon of baking soda.  Yes, I used Arm and Hammer, and was kind of annoyed about it because EVERYTHING else was local!

If you have pears on hand and are into locavorism, I cannot recommend this recipe enough. It comes from Little City Farm.

PEAR UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

Syrup:

• 1/4 cup honey and/or maple syrup (so 1/2 cup total)
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 2-3 ripe pears, cored and sliced

Cake Batter:

• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups local flour (spelt)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup milk or buttermilk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Prepare syrup by melting first four ingredients together in small saucepan. Stir until well combined. Pour into 8×12 glass baking dish.

3. Arrange sliced pears evenly on top of the syrup.

4. In medium sized mixing bowl, beat butter, sweetener and egg.

5. Mix all dry ingredients together in small bowl.

6. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with milk.

7. Spoon cake batter over pears in baking dish.

8. Bake about 30 to 35 minutes or until knife inserted in cake comes out clean. Remove from oven, cool a few minutes and turn onto a platter.

9. Serve warm or cold with homemade yogurt or whipped cream (with raw milk if you can get it!).

Makes eight servings.

HOMEMADE WHIPPED CREAM

No raw milk here (I really want to try it one day), but I made my own whipped cream with honey just for this. In your mixer, just whip some cream and add enough honey to your taste.  I put in about a quarter cup and hubby said it was perfect.

My Notes:

• As you can see, I used a TON of honey in this recipe. No white sugar or other sweetener used! Honey’s really expensive though, so I don’t know if I could keep this up all the time.  Makes me want to get some bees just so it’s cheaper!
• I specifically bought honey from Lloyd Spear, Beekeeper at the farmers market on Sunday for this dessert. We don’t have much maple syrup left on hand, so I used 1/2 cup of honey instead of 1/4 and 1/4. It was REALLY sweet and I probably could have gotten away with less.
• I made butter that night just for this as well! The cream came from Battenkill Creamery. So I had fresh butter, fresh BUTTERMILK (because I just used the buttermilk I got from making the butter).
• I found spelt (white, not wheat, because I was baking) at the co-op. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in a conventional grocery store.  It comes from Champlain Milling Co. which processes and mills locally produced wheat.  In this case, local is 118 miles away – I’m forgiving the extra 18 miles. I could not tell the difference in taste between spelt and wheat, although supposedly it has a nuttier and sweeter flavor.
• The egg, of course, came from Coopers Ark Farm.
• And of course, the most important part, the pears. I bought them last week at the farmer’s market from Maynard Farms. They were a little overripe so it might have been better if they were fresher.  Still, they were delish.

The Verdict

I’m in love.  Honey is awesome.