The silky, sticky sweetness of honey is within reach even on a low glycemic diet with this simple, homemade honey recipe!
Since real honey, while nutritious and delicious and amazing, is not conducive to weight loss on the Trim Healthy Mama plan, and since Nature’s Hollow’s substitute honey is kinda pricey, I decided to create my own homemade honey flavored sauce.
This recipe is basically exactly the same as the homemade sugar free maple syrup recipe that I shared before. However, there are a few important tweaks which transform this thickened sweet sauce from that maple syrup into this easy and delicious homemade honey.
The resulting homemade honey that this recipe produces is great for serving atop of pancakes, in tea, or for using in recipes that call for real or substitute honey (such as my Sweet Barbacoa or my Best Barbecue Sauce).
In this funny honey (I like to call it that because it’s faux honey, or fake honey, and the f + oney is foney or funny, so funny honey!), I used some honey flavor extract. This adds a little more honey-ish flavor, but if you’d rather not buy it or use it at all, feel free to omit it. The resulting syrup will still be sweet and serve as an excellent substitute for real honey.
Homemade Honey
Ingredients
- 1 cup cold filtered water divided
- ⅛ teaspoon xanthan gum or glucomannan
- 6 tablespoons xylitol, erythritol, or equivalent sweetener
- ⅛ teaspoon mineral salt
- 1 teaspoon honey flavoring, optional
- 5 drops (or more) yellow food coloring, optional
Instructions
- Mix ¼ cup cold water with xanthan gum.
- Mix remaining water, sweetener, and salt together in a saucepan. Bring to a boil.
- While whisking, mix in the xanthan gum water.
- Stir constantly until it begins to thicken.
- Remove from heat and add in honey flavoring and food coloring.
- Mixture should thicken more as it cools.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Nutrition
They don’t have a honey flavoring, but have you used Angel Bake flavorings? I would be interested in making lavender as well as rose syrups or just use the flavorings in baking.
As far as the honey it seems like the one you mentioned from Olive Nation is the best reviewed. I have their maple flavoring in my cart and a butter emulsion from LorAnn since it is the only true vegan butter flavoring.
I am starting to make everything myself so I control what is in it, taking some from the keto diet as well as vegan.
Instead of food coloring just use a pinch of turmeric powder 😉
That’s awesome! 🙂
Way back in the 70’s I lived next door to a Morman and once they introduced me to their FLOWER MADE HONEY I have been trying to find the recipe ever since.
Just wondering if you have heard of this or is it similar to yours?
Hi, Sparkgapper. I did find this recipe where dandelions are made to make honey. I’d sub the real sugar for something like Gentle Sweet. 🙂 https://www.thespruceeats.com/dandelion-honey-recipe-1806823
I can’t seem to find honey flavouring anywhere. Is there a ddecent susbstitute? Maple extract? Or is it better to just omit?
You can try omitting it. It’ll still be a sweet syrup. 🙂 I have to buy the honey flavoring online via Olive Nation or Amazon.
How long does this keep for in the frig?
Depends on where you live–altitude, humidity, etc. It should be fine as long as it’s not growing anything or smelling funky. 🙂
I’ve had the same issues. I live at high altitude, so maybe that’s part of the problem. I’d say I boiled it at least 5 minutes AND doubled the xanthan gum. It did finally begin to bubble as if more viscous. I’m hoping it does approach honey viscosity. If not, shall I double the xanthan gum again while reheating? Maybe I should use glucomannan this time, which I also have?
I live at 8,000 feet so I feel you! Yes, just add some more xanthan gum until it reaches the texture you like. Do keep in mind though that over heating xanthan gum can cause it to lose its thickening ability.
Thanks for the note on overheating xanthan gum. I was wondering if I’d heated it enough.
I have questions. Is the “cold filtered” water a foodie thing, or does it need to be free of minerals before adding the “mineral salt,” whose function is my second question. What do you think would happen if I made it with tap water and a little Celtic sea salt?
Hi, Kenneth. I prefer filtered water because unfiltered water tends to picks up bacteria quickly. You can use unfiltered (any kind), but keep in mind that it might go bad faster. As for mineral salt, that’s just what I recommend because it’s healthier than processed table salt. Celtic sea salt, Real Salt, any healthy salt will do because all it does it enhance the flavor a bit. 🙂
I’d had trouble getting it to thicken. I ended up needing about a tsp of xanthan gum all total.
Hi, thanks for this recipe! I had been using a purchased SF honey and just figured out it was messing my blood sugar as it had Malitol syrup. Ewww.. right up there with sugar on the glycerin index. 🙁 so I ordered honey flavoring and couldn’t wait till it got here to try this! I actually had to double the xanthine gum and boil about 10 minutes to reduce to close to honey consistecny. It’s cooling now so am wager to see if it thickens a bit more. Also, I started with 1/2 tsp honey flavoring and that was just right for us. And the 5 drops of yellow made mine a little too yellow.. next time I think I’ll try 3 to give a little color without looking fake. Thanks so much for getting me on the right track!
How long would you think it takes to thicken? I boiled quite awhile, but it isn’t really thick. Hasn’t thickened much as it has cooled. Tastes good, though.
Probably about a minute to 5 minutes. You can try adding more thickener if needed. It should thicken a bit more as it cools, too.
Thank you!