Creaming butter with honey

[jedovaty]

Hi: what happens if I cream butter with honey?  Will the butter hold up, chilled?  Or just be a soft mess?  I would just try it, however, I only have a little precious expensive local honey on hand.  Purpose is to play with laminated doughs...

Sugar doesn't have the water it it, but it is hygroscopic (and when I add it to, say my kouign amann dough, the dough starts weeping syrup pretty quick).  Honey already has the water in it.

Hmm.. thanks for your input

[jmacnaughtan]

It will go softer, but it should still be workable.

 

Why don't you go and buy some cheap honey and play around with it?

[Darienne]

4 hours ago, jmacnaughtan said:

It will go softer, but it should still be workable.

 

Why don't you go and buy some cheap honey and play around with it?

I believe that much cheap honey is not honey at all....????

[donk79]

Honey is also hygroscopic.  Keep it sealed, it will last forever.  Leave it open, it will slowly absorb more moisture until it ferments.

[donk79]

10 hours ago, Darienne said:

I believe that much cheap honey is not honey at all....????

Cheap is always relative.  Around the Mid-Atlantic, $10 seems to be the going rate for small scale local honey.  (This is what members of the local beekeeping clubs will charge). There are always much more expensive varietal honeys available, and I can usually find a beekeeper I trust who will part with a quart for as low as $5/lb.  

 

Any cheaper than that, and I would absolutely be suspicious, at least where I live.

[jmacnaughtan]

On 2/23/2019 at 2:20 PM, Darienne said:

I believe that much cheap honey is not honey at all....????

 

I agree with @donk79.  But if you choose standard honey (not individual flower/source/etc), it's much cheaper.  Here, you can get half a kilo for around 6€ or so.  Also, I believe the EU has strict labelling laws around what can be called honey (and I'm pretty sure I can taste the difference between honey and glucose syrup + caramel), so I wouldn't be that worried.

 

Just saying that I wouldn't use expensive lavender or whatever honey as a first try.

[Martin Fisher]

IMHO, it's best to work with crystallized honey and the best crystallized honey is Dyce process honey.

In a nutshell, standard crystallized honey is very carefully ground very fine in a mortar and pestle—creating a silky smooth texture.

That honey is then used to "seed" a larger batch of honey to turn it silky smooth.

The final result should be silky smooth and stay stable at room temperature, even when combined with soft butter—but that may depend on the particular honey or particular butter used.

The Dyce process is/was quite a revelation. It produces a very unique product.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             If you don't care about the amazing properties of the above, try something like this: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/honey-butter-recipe-2013170         

 

 

[teonzo]

On 2/23/2019 at 3:01 AM, jedovaty said:

Hi: what happens if I cream butter with honey?  Will the butter hold up, chilled?  Or just be a soft mess?  I would just try it, however, I only have a little precious expensive local honey on hand.  Purpose is to play with laminated doughs...

 

If you want to cream butter (adding air) with only honey (no sucrose) then it's a bit difficult, honey tends to prevent the increase of volume.

For laminated doughs you just need to mix butter and honey until homogeneous, you want to avoid adding air, no need to cream the butter. The mixture will become softer and softer the more honey you add, unless you want to get something uber sweet then the mixture should hold it's shape and be pliable at refrigerator temperatures.

 

 

 

On 2/23/2019 at 3:01 AM, jedovaty said:

Sugar doesn't have the water it it, but it is hygroscopic (and when I add it to, say my kouign amann dough, the dough starts weeping syrup pretty quick).

 

If your dough starts weeping syrup quickly then you are doing something wrong, or you are working in an enviroment with too high umidity.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[jedovaty]

Thanks all for the replies.  I went a cautionary way and added a couple generous dallops of honey while creaming/mixing butter with less sugar, and it was indeed soft, and was pliable after set in the fridge.

 

On 2/25/2019 at 5:31 AM, teonzo said:

 

If you want to cream butter (adding air) with only honey (no sucrose) then it's a bit difficult, honey tends to prevent the increase of volume.

For laminated doughs you just need to mix butter and honey until homogeneous, you want to avoid adding air, no need to cream the butter. The mixture will become softer and softer the more honey you add, unless you want to get something uber sweet then the mixture should hold it's shape and be pliable at refrigerator temperatures.

Thanks for this, that makes sense!  I got the creaming idea for laminated dough by following the chef steps' kouign amann.  Had no idea you could just mix the honey and butter.  I am really curious now to try ghee with honey, since there's no water in ghee... hmmm 

 

On 2/25/2019 at 5:31 AM, teonzo said:

If your dough starts weeping syrup quickly then you are doing something wrong, or you are working in an enviroment with too high umidity.

I've been successful in making decent croissants over the last couple weeks, so I think my technique is improving.  The moment I add sugar to the butter and/or dough, it starts to feel wet, and whether sitting in the fridge or on my counter, I can feel the moisture increasing.  Moving the dough off my counter top leaves wet syrup spots.  My relative humidity averages about 60%, I am coastal, less than 1/2 mile from the beach.  We've had rain the last few weeks so it's been higher, even with the heater/conditioner running. 

 

For the kouign amann, I've tried traditional recipe variations (roll in butter with sugar into left over bread dough, followed by 2-3 rapid turns), as well as David Liebotvitz and Chefsteps.  The Chefsteps technique by creaming ended up smearing all over my counter at the last turn, and was more puff pastry than anything.  Best results were from the traditional method, as it's pretty quick, although, I still got syrup during the short, ~40min proof before bake.

[teonzo]

1 hour ago, jedovaty said:

I've been successful in making decent croissants over the last couple weeks, so I think my technique is improving.  The moment I add sugar to the butter and/or dough, it starts to feel wet, and whether sitting in the fridge or on my counter, I can feel the moisture increasing.

 

This is strange, since the sugar is part of the inclusion. This means that if you work correctly then the sugar is surrounded by butter and dough, it does not come in contact with air. Being included there should be no way for syrup to escape out of the dough. I can only suppose you are making some tears / holes in the dough, which is a pretty common error when starting making laminated doughs.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, jedovaty said:

For the kouign amann, I've tried traditional recipe variations (roll in butter with sugar into left over bread dough, followed by 2-3 rapid turns)

 

I don't know what your sources say (probably they mention it), but remember that traditional kouign amann is made using salted butter. A lot of people makes the mistake of using unsalted butter. The peculiarity of this viennoiserie is that it tastes of salted caramel.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[jedovaty]

3 minutes ago, teonzo said:

I don't know what your sources say (probably they mention it), but remember that traditional kouign amann is made using salted butter. A lot of people makes the mistake of using unsalted butter. The peculiarity of this viennoiserie is that it tastes of salted caramel.

Yes, I use salted butter

The DL method uses sugar [davidliebovitz.com] during the turns, while the various youtube videos from france simply add all the sugar when the laminating butter is added (example here [youtube], there are several more with similar techniques, some of them super messy, don't care about tears, exposed butter, etc).

I wonder if my sugar is too coarse?  It's not fine, but rather large and granular, similar to demerrera.  I'll take pictures of the wetness next time I try to make this.