Every Saturday at the Worthington Farmer's Market, we get the question...

"What do you do when your honey gets all hard and thick at the bottom of the container?"

Yes, that's granulation.  A simple fact of life, a side effect of raw honey.  Like it or not, it will get thick and hard over time.  Sometimes this makes it very difficult to get out of the jar.  I don't mind the granulated texture, but some folks just insist their honey must be liquid.  

If you're one of the "I prefer liquid honey" folks, I recommend just using up the granulated honey and starting with a fresh jar of liquid honey, because any little tiny seed of granulated honey that is left in the jar will act just like..  well... a seed.  It will grow.  It's a tiny little crystal that will grow more tiny little crystals, even if you just spent 20 minutes putting your honey in a warm water bath to reliquify it.

My favorite ways to "use up" granulated honey is to make a big batch of granola, and to make a big pot of iced tea or lemonade.

So even though it is still pretty cold outside, I bring you a recipe for Honey Sweetened Lemonade.  Use up that granulated honey left in the jar and surprise your family with a refreshing pitcher of hand-squeezed lemonade.

Ingredients:

• 2 Lemons
• 2 TB Honey
• 1 Cup Hot Water (Keep it under 100 degrees to keep the honey raw)
• Large Pitcher of Ice

Squeeze the lemon juice into a pitcher, removing the seeds.   Use warm water to degranulate your honey (or if the honey is liquid, just mix it with the warm water).  I simply pour the hot water into the honey bottle and shake it until all the granulated honey is dissolved in the water.

Next, just add ice and cool water to taste.  Our lemons were pretty tangy, so I added extra fall honey to the pot to sweeten it, and filled about half of the pitcher up with ice to cool the water so it was ready to drink immediately.

Do you have any other favorite ways to use your granulated honey?  If so, please post it in the comments!  We'd love to hear about them.

-posted by Jayne