Two Desserts With Honey Delight Award Winning Honey

Honey, how I love you. For a girl with a sweet-tooth, you always come through for me. I love you on buttery toast best and when I am sick, I love you in my tea. I have used you in medicated form on a number of cuts and you just heal me right up. You even hide in my skincare products and keep me hydrated. 


I think I might love you as much as I love lemons.

Honey, you can imagine how happy I was when I started talking to a person on Facebook who, along with her family, actually produces you. That person is Carmen Pearce-Brown from Honey Delight in Nicolls in the ACT. Carmen and her family have been producing honey for four generations now and recently won a blue ribbon for their Apple Box Honey and The Champion ribbon for their Yellow Box Honey in the 2012 Royal Easter Show!

Source: Honey Delight

After our conversation, Carmen sent me some of their blue ribbon Apple Box to cook with. It arrived on my doorstep just as I was leaving to go to work. I was so excited but I didn't have time to even open the package to look at it, I just had to wait and think about what I could make that would really showcase this beautiful produce. 

I decided on two desserts: number one is a cardamom and honey crème brûlée. I felt that the bold flavour of the Apple Box would really hold its own against the earthy spice of the cardamom. 

For me, this was a good decision. It was creamy, earthy and surprisingly not too sweet. I also got to have a load of fun with the blow torch. This was my first crème brûlée and my first outing with a blow torch. I am not sure if this is going to be an issue, but I really, really want to find other things to brûlée now....

The orange segments you see above were gently poached in a mixture of vanilla, orange juice and honey as dessert number two. They went beautifully with the crème brûlée  but I also tried them on some ice-cream later on and they were gorgeous then too. 

There was a lot of poaching liquid left over so some of that went into a glass of sparkling white - this was a very good decision. The autumnal flavours went surprisingly well with what I usually consider to be a summery drink. 

So there you have it; honey, you did me proud in these desserts, just as I knew you would.


Thanks again to Carmen from Honey Delight for allowing me to use their prize winning honey in my cooking. If you are in the area, pop down to the Capital Region Farmers Markets at Exhibition Park in Canberra every Saturday to try some of this amazing honey for yourself. 
For more information on Honey Delight including their very special Active Tea Tree Honey, check out this article by Lizzy of Bizzy Lizzy's Good Things. 

Honey and Cardamom Crème Brûlée and Honey and Vanilla Poached Oranges

crème brûlée recipe adapted from here

For the crème brûlée

600ml thickened cream

8 cardamom pods, slightly crushed

6 egg yolks

1/4 cup of castor sugar

4 tablespoons honey - the best you can find. 

1 1/2 tsp of castor sugar per ramekin for the brulee part

• Preheat the oven to 120 -130C depending on your oven
• Place the cream and cardamom in a saucepan over a medium heat. Stir until the cream reaches scalding point (slight bubbles appear at the edges but does not boil). Take the pan off the heat to infuse.
• Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks, sugar and honey into oblivion until you have a creamy, pale mix
• Add the cream to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. 
• Strain the mix into a jug and skim off any bubbles that appear on the surface.
• Gently pour the mix into 4 150ml ramekins, I used 2 125 ml and 2 150 ml -I had a little left over.
• Place the ramekins in a deep roasting pan. Pour boiling water into the pan so that it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 40 -60 minutes depending on your oven. There should be a slight wobble in the centre. Mine took closer to an hour to bake.
• Take the ramekins out and cool for 10 minutes before covering with cling film and refrigerating overnight.
• When you are ready, sprinkle 1/2 teaspoons of sugar evenly over each custard and with a kitchen blow torch, gently melt the sugar until it has hardened to toffee. Leave to cool completely before serving.
• If you do not own a blow torch, just do the same thing under the grill, though this may take a little longer. 

For the Honey and Vanilla Poached Oranges

3 Oranges - segmented (see video here on how to do this)

1 Vanilla pod, split and seeds reserved

1/2 cup of honey

1/2 cup of orange juice

1/2 cup of water

• Bring the honey, juice and water to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. 
• Add the vanilla pod, seeds and orange segments and simmer for about 10 minutes.
• Take the pan off the heat and leave to infuse for a further 10 minutes.
• Strain the oranges, reserve the poaching liquid for later use such as adding to a glass of sparkling. 
• Serve the oranges with the brulee or on top of good vanilla ice-cream or yoghurt.