Last Updated on April 4, 2020 by Michelle
Honey is delicious. But floral-infused honey very well may be one of the sweeteners of heaven, right alongside maple syrup of course.
Because I’m in love with my heirloom lilacs here around my 200-year-old farmhouse, and because I love experimenting with anything lilac flavored, my first attempt at honey infusion was a given. I knew I wanted to try lilac-infused honey. Mind you, your choices of what to use to infuse your honey are as endless as a hard day on the farm is long. And your list of honey to choose from may be just as long, but if you don’t have a local source for your honeyj (local is always best!), I can’t recommend this honey enough. The folks over at Bee Wild Raw Honey bottle up pure joy, and their customer service is top notch, delivered with a sweet southern accent. Plus, it’s one of my favorite small businesses that I recommend.
See the end of this post for more yummy inspiration about how to infuse your honey.
If you love a good little story and fun history lesson in one, read the fun story about the lilacs around our old New England farmhouse.
Looking for amazing lilacs of your own? Look no further than the amazing selection they have over at NatureHills.com… these guys are seriously the best!
Wanna know an online source I just found and am in love with as a perfect place to unearth heirloom-kind-of treasures that are perfect for an old farmhouse? Check out Antique Farmhouse or click right here.–>
This post contains affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.
Add a fresh, fragrant bloom
To make any floral honey, simply start with a fragrant bloom that’s growing fresh, and at its prime. Strip a few blooms off the stems and lay them, fresh, in a jar of honey, mix them in, and seal. Well, that’s what I did when I was learning the ropes of infusing honey. I later read that fresh blooms can lead to mold. I never had any problem with that, but possibly other blooms may, so for my infusions today I always use a mesh straining bag, like these, to soak my blooms in my honey, then I can easily strain them out. I may try drying some blooms to make future jars of infused honey that way as well.
Bonus, if I dry the flowers now, I can make floral infused honey for an amazing sweet burst of summer in the dead of February, when I’ve forgotten that summer is even a thing.
But it’s that simple. Toss some blooms in, close up your jar, and give it a few weeks or longer to sit quietly tucked away in a cabinet. The result may be the most amazing honey you’ve ever smelled, tasted, or stirred in your morning cup of tea.
If you have a lilac bush, be sure to read up on these 4 simple tips every lilac owner needs to know–tips from a professional horticulturalist who offered some great wisdom here, on SoulyRested, recently.
If you’d rather watch than read… here’s my youtube video on this topic:
Strain your blooms
When I use my lilac-infused honey, I just scoop a teaspoon right into my tea, mindless of the blooms that are in the spoonful. They quickly float to the top and are super easy to strain off with one swipe of a spoon across the top. Of course I could also use a small stranger and pour it into another cup, catching the blooms in my strainer.
On the other hand, eating lilac blooms may have many healing benefits… they’re beautiful as decoration on pastries and are definitely edible. So if you don’t mind the addition to your tea, drink up the good stuff. From what I understand, eating aromatic flowers is great for your gut. They increase blood flow in your GI tract and therefore promote healing. Raw lilac flowers may also help constipation and flatulence. (Yeah, somedays, we all need to eat some flowers folks. Just a fact.)
The blooms will continue to make the honey stronger in flavor if you let them seep in your honey, which I’m fine with. But you can also take a few minutes to fish the blooms out of your jar of honey once your flavor is just right for your taste. Or, as I explained above, I now love using these simple bags for the blooms, so I can easily take them out when it’s time.
Choose your tea
Except in black teas, which mask the floral fragrance with their strength, I find I love my lilac-infused honey in any and all herbal teas I’ve tried it in, especially the fruity varieties and chamomile. But my hands-down favorite combination is a soothing cup of lilac mint tea.
I simply steep a small tea strainer filled with mint, which I dried from the garden, and cover it with hot water for a few minutes. Then I add a teaspoon-full of my lilac honey.
I imagine it’s extra yummy to me because every last drop of flavor grew right here on our homestead. It’s amazing that something so delectable is so very simple.
Read this post if you’d like a fool-proof, piece-of-cake easy way to dry your herbs or flowers. You just need a paper bag and a little bit of patience.
And check out this amazing family-run bee company–Bee Wild Raw Honey–and the most delicious honey in the world (in my humble opinion)… their tupelo honey.
If you love lilac-everything the way that I do, you’ll enjoy these other posts too:
How to Make Lilac-Infused Kombucha
How to Make Lilac Pancake Syrup in 9 Simple Steps
How to Make Lilac Simple Syrup
How to Make Lilac Sugar
What I Learned About My Old Farmhouse Lilacs
A list of the items I couldn’t live without in my farmhouse kitchen.
Think bigger
While I tried my experiment with a small jar of honey, next time I’m moving up to much bigger! This lilac-infused honey would be wonderful to bake with! (For that, I will definitely just leave the flowers in the honey.) And I can’t imagine how happy my mouth would be if I indulged in this floral sweet goodness lavished on toast or biscuits!
Try other combinations
Of course your options of what you can use to infuse your honey are almost as limitless as the amount of projects one finds around an old homestead.
Try any of these:
— dried herbs
— dried spices
— dried flowers.
— loose dried teas
Clover honey tends to be a nice mild choice, and heaven knows we all have some of that nearby, so that’s a great one to start with. Even better, try a lively combo of a few herbs, spices, or flowers and make your own unique infused honey blend.
Whatever infusion you pursue, please let me know what you make and how it turns out! I’d love to continually add information to this post and, of course, new combinations of yummy infused honey to my pantry.
Eat honey, for it is good, Yes, the honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Proverbs 24:13
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