Artificial honey: how and what to make at home, recipes

Artificial honey is a sweet sugary substance that is formed without the participation of bees. It is prepared from different ingredients, and tastes only remotely reminiscent of a flower bee product. Such a sweet product is a good substitute for natural honey for allergy sufferers who cannot consume natural honey due to individual intolerance. You can cook the mass yourself using different recipe options.

What is artificial honey for?

Artificial honey is used only in cooking. It is not used for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, as it lacks most of the he alth benefits.It is used in the manufacture of confectionery, instead of natural honey. It is also sometimes added to pastries or sweets as an analogue of regular dry sugar or sugar syrup.

Composition and calorie content

The composition of the artificial honey product does not contain those substances that are present in the substance produced by bees. The formula for this molasses consists of:

• 48% fructose and glucose;
• about 30% sucrose;
• up to 22% water;
• 80% carbs;
• 3% additional impurities.

The calorie content of artificial honey is approximately 304 kilocalories per 100 grams of product.

Production process

The product is industrially obtained from different types of sugar. It can be obtained from vegetables or fruits:

• beets;
• watermelons;
• corn;
• melons;
• grapes;
• cane.

Various natural additives are used to give the mixture its characteristic honey color. Most often it is tea, saffron, St. John's wort. Artificial dyes are used less frequently, and sometimes a small amount of natural honey is added to the molasses.

The method of manufacturing the product in question is called acid hydrolysis. It involves the additional use of organic acids, most often citric, less often lactic. The feedstock is pressed to obtain juice, which is subsequently evaporated. This process continues until the raw material acquires the desired color and consistency.

Recipes at home

Artificial honey can be bought or made by yourself. To get a delicious product, use any recipe you like.

Sugar

Due to the cheapness of raw materials, such a product is made from beet or cane sugar. Ingredients ratio:

• sugar - 70 grams;
• boiling water - 30 milliliters;
• citric acid - 1 gram;
• instead of citric acid you can take formic acid in the amount of half a gram;
• drinking soda - 0.8 grams.

To mix the ingredients, prepare a china cup or special beaker.Pour sugar into a container, dilute it with boiling water. Stir the ingredients until a viscous mass is obtained, then pour into a saucepan and bring to 80 ° C. Simmer the mixture on the lowest heat for 2 hours, remembering to stir it constantly. Cool the finished honey and pour into jars.

From elderberry

You can also cook honey from vegetable raw materials. And, in particular, from elderberry, which will give the mass a piquant taste and characteristic color.

Take a jar with a capacity of 0.5 liters with densely packed elderberry florets. Move the raw materials to the pan, where you first pour 1 liter of water. Bring the mixture to a boil, simmer on low heat for 10 minutes, then turn off the stove and leave the broth to cool. Infuse it for 12-15 hours, then strain.

Add 3 kilograms of sugar to the resulting liquid, bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for an hour over low heat. Stir the mass regularly, and when it thickens, turn off the heat and add 1 teaspoon of citric acid. Stir the "honey" so that all the ingredients are evenly mixed, and when it has cooled, use as directed.

Raspberry

To make such a he althy product, mix 2 kilograms of sugar with half a liter of water. Boil the syrup, regularly removing foam from its surface. Add 4 kilos of prepared raspberry syrup, bring to a boil and skim off the foam again.

Remove the container from the stove, add 25-30 grams of lactic acid and 50 grams of heliotrope essence to the still hot mixture. Mix everything thoroughly, pour into jars, let cool and then roll up the lids.

Yellow cherry plum

This type of plum makes a wonderful tonic analogue of honey. The use of the mixture allows you to normalize appetite and improve mood. Pour 1 kilogram of cherry plum with half a liter of water. Boil until the fruits give up all the juice. Cool the broth, strain through cheesecloth or a sieve.

Pour sugar into the liquid in a ratio of 1:1. Simmer the mixture over medium heat until it becomes thick and smooth. Your cherry plum honey is ready!

Watermelon

An alternative name for such a product is nardek. To prepare it, take a ripe, as large and sweet watermelon as possible, separate the pulp from the rind with a wooden spoon.Rub it through a sieve, then through cheesecloth. Boil the watermelon mass, cool, then strain again. Put the container back on the fire and simmer the liquid until thick.

From melon

Fragrant melon honey is prepared like this:

• remove the peel from the surface of the fruit, remove the seeds from the pulp;
• pass the fruit through a meat grinder;
• strain juice through cheesecloth;
• boil the resulting liquid until it reduces in volume by six times.

Now cool the mass and pour it into sterile jars.

Pumpkin

Choose only fully ripe vegetables. Cut off the top of it, remove all the seeds. Pour sugar inside, cover the pumpkin with a cut "hat". The nectar that will appear inside the vegetable in a week will be pumpkin honey.

Fruit

Fruit artificial honey is also called the word bekmes. It does not contain sugar and can be made from completely different fruits. But the principle of obtaining goodies is the same in any case. Consider it on the example of grapes.

Drain the juice from 1 kilogram of fruit through cheesecloth. Cook over medium heat until the volume of liquid is reduced by a factor of three. When the juice acquires the consistency of jelly, "honey" is considered ready. You can prepare such a delicacy from one or several types of fruits at once.

From acacia

To prepare a tasty and he althy treat, take:

• 1.5 liters of water;
• 2 medium sized lemons;
• 1 kilogram of acacia flowers;
• 2 kilos of sugar.

Rinse acacia flowers, let the liquid drain and fill with water. Cut the lemon into cubes and add to the flower mixture. Put the saucepan on the stove, bring the ingredients to a boil and simmer for another 20 minutes over low heat.

Decoction insist about 12 hours, and then put it in a cold place for the same time.

Strain the liquid through cheesecloth, add sugar and cook for 2 hours. Pour the cooled honey into sterile jars and seal with lids.

How to distinguish from natural?

You can distinguish an artificial product by the following criteria:

• lack of ductility characteristic of a natural bee product;
• maintaining its original consistency without the onset of the crystallization phase;
• lower cost than genuine honey;
• lack of sore throat after drinking "counterfeit";
• dominant base without any floral or herbal aftertaste.

Artificially made honey can be recognized by taste. It resembles caramel or even burnt sugar. In addition, it foams noticeably when poured onto a plate or into a cup. Using these little tricks, you can easily understand whether honey is genuine or artificially obtained in front of you.

Contraindications

Sweet product, unlike natural honey, is not contraindicated if you are allergic to bee products. But he also has prohibitions to use, including:

• sweet intolerance;
• obesity;
• diabetes mellitus of any type and severity;
• problems with tooth enamel;
• allergic to additional components used in the preparation of the product.

During pregnancy, taking such sweets is not prohibited, but its use should be done with caution.

Storage Features

After preparation, the mass should be poured into sterile jars of different capacities.It is necessary to cork containers with nylon lids or thick paper, wrapping it with an elastic band. It is not recommended to use metal lids in order not to provoke the development of oxidative processes.

The air temperature for storing such honey should not exceed +25 °C. It is recommended to put jars in a refrigerator or a dark pantry. Properly stored, the workpiece will have a shelf life of 9-12 months.

Artificial honey is in many ways inferior to natural bee products. But it also has its own scope, having pleasant organoleptic characteristics. And if you cook it yourself, using natural fruit or vegetable additives, the sweetness will acquire not only a pleasant taste, but also a number of useful properties.

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