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The Ultimate Guide to Making Vegan Honee!

Make beautiful and delicious vegan honee from three simple ingredients (organic apple juice, vegan sugar, and either dried flowers or chamomile tea bags). This vegan honee looks, tastes, and bakes just like honey from bees, but without any cruelty or exploitation!

Course DIY
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 3 hours
Total Time 3 hours 5 minutes
Servings 62 TBS
Calories 65 kcal
Author Deborah Mesdag

Ingredients

  • 2 quarts Organic Apple Juice
  • 800 grams Vegan Sugar
  • 360 Dried Flowers (or 3 Chamomile Tea Bags)

Instructions

  1. Harvest and process 360 flowers according to the directions in the blog post. Or, you can just use 3 chamomile tea bags to save time. (Just be sure the only ingredient in the tea is chamomile flowers.)

  2. Gather your ingredients and equipment. You will need two pots (a 1 1/2 or 2 quart and a 3 or 4 quart), a spatula, a strainer, a coffee filter, and some clean Mason jars. Be sure that your scale can handle the combined weight of your pot and the honee. (I use an 11-pound capacity scale for this recipe.)

  3. First, weigh your larger pot and write down how much it weighs. Then add 1,320 grams to the weight of your pot. This is how much your finished honee in the pot should weigh. Please note that your pot and total will be different from mine in the blog post as your pot will be a different weight.

  4. Add your dried flowers to the smaller pot, then pour 3 to 4 cups of your apple juice onto the flowers. If you are using chamomile tea bags, open them up and pour the loose powder into the pot. The flowers will try to float on top at first, but will sink as they soak up the juice.
  5. Bring the juice to a boil over medium-high heat, then remove the pot from the burner and let the flowers or tea steep for two hours.

  6. Place the strainer lined with the coffee filter into your larger pot, then carefully pour the juice and flowers into the liner. Push all the juice you can out of the flowers with your spatula. Discard the liner with the pressed flowers. 

  7. Add the sugar to your flower-infused juice, then heat while stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved.

  8. Add the rest of the juice and stir to combine. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for two hours to start. Stir the syrup every 20 to 30 minutes to prevent it from burning on the bottom.

  9. After the two hours of simmering, check the weight of your pot with the honee to see how close you are to your target weight. Check every 15 minutes once you are within 200 grams, every 10 minutes once you are within 100 grams, every 5 minutes once you are within 50 grams, and every minute once you are within 10 grams. To check the weight, place a hot pad on your scale, then zero or tare the scale so it reads zero with the pad in place. Then, place the pot onto the pad and read the weight. Your honee is done when it reaches your target weight. It will still seem way too thin, but will thicken considerably as it cools. This is why you must use a scale to make honee as it is impossible to correctly judge when it is done otherwise.

  10. Place your Mason jars onto a trivet or hot pad (to protect your table from the heat), and very carefully pour the boiling hot syrup into them. Immediately screw a lid onto each one, using a hot pad to hold the jar while you do so. The jars are definitely hot enough to burn you, so be careful!

  11. Allow the jars to cool to room temperature, then store your honee in the fridge. Using this method, the jars will self-seal and will last for up to six months as long as they stay sealed and refrigerated. You can use any size Mason jars that you like as long as together they will hold nearly four cups of honee. (Two pint-size jars are not quite large enough as Mason jar sizing goes right to the top of the jar.)