Old-Fashioned Honey Recipes

Honey recipes aren’t as plentiful as they once were. Cooking with honey used to be the standard method of sweetening a dish, and so recipes with honey were readily available for lots of different dishes.

That’s because refined sugar was once an expensive rarity, something that only the well-to-do could afford on a regular basis. So as the only sweetener available to many, honey was used as a recipe ingredient on a regular basis.

Times have changed, of course, and now the situation of many years ago has reversed itself. Refined sugar has been cheap and plentiful for many years, and honey is now much more expensive than sugar. So now honey is used relatively rarely in the average home kitchen, and for most people, sugar is the go-to sweetener.

And that’s a shame.

Because honey offers many qualities that make it more healthful in a number of ways compared to refined table sugar.

And Cooking with honey – and in particular, baking with honey – offers benefits of flavor, freshness, texture and keeping qualities that can’t be matched by sugar.

That’s why commercial bakeries and food production facilities still rely heavily upon honey as a key ingredient, in spite of the fact that it’s much more expensive than sugar.

Looking for Some Honey Recipes?

Because more people are becoming aware of the health benefits of honey, there’s been a bit of a resurgence in the use of honey in cooking and baking.

But as I mentioned above, recipes using honey aren’t nearly as prevalent as they once were.

So I thought it might be fun to find some old recipes that were popular many years ago, during a time when honey was much more commonly used in cooking. And those are the recipes listed below – old public domain recipes using honey that I’ve scrounged up from various resources across the Internet.

Most of these recipes are quite old; many of them date back to the 1800’s. Just scan through the list below, and if something piques your interest, why not give at a try?

One word of warning: I’m no cook, and I haven’t tried these recipes myself. So no guarantees about how these old recipes will turn out.

One thing’s for sure, though: These ancient honey recipes are certainly time-tested!

Honey Popcorn Ball Recipe

Here’s an old-time popcorn ball recipe that uses honey instead of sugar for a crunchy, sweet treat.

Honey Doughnut Recipe

This honey doughnut recipe has you making doughnuts the old-fashioned way - fried up in fat! No, it’s probably not very good for you, but might make for a tasty treat to indulge in just occasionally.

No Bake Fruit Cake Recipe

This no bake fruit cake recipe from 1916 might be the origin of the joke about fruit cakes lasting forever!

Fruit Soup Recipe

This fruit soup recipe from 1921 uses honey as the primary sweetener.

Apple Charlotte Recipe

This Apple Charlotte recipe uses no sugar at all. And with one variation of the recipe you can make this an extremely low fat dish.

Scripture Cake Recipe

Have you heard of a scripture cake? It’s a cake recipe where each ingredient is mentioned in a Bible verse. Honey is one of the ingredients, and of course, honey is mentioned numerous times in scripture.

Honey Candied Sweet Potatoes Recipe

Here’s a candied sweet potatoes recipe that utilizes honey as the only sweetener. This recipe is from a cookbook that was published in 1920.

Easy Rice Pudding Recipe

This rice pudding recipe is sweetened entirely with honey. And it really is easy to make. You don’t even need to dirty a mixing bowl!

Nut Honey Cake Recipe

An old-fashioned nut honey cake recipe that uses equal measures of honey and brown sugar for sweetening.

Honey Raisin Tapioca Pudding Recipe

This honey raisin tapioca pudding recipe is a simple recipe that is sweetened entirely with honey.

Honey Cookies Recipe

Honey cookies for a sweet treat! This honey recipe is sweetened equally with honey and brown sugar.

Honey Apple Pudding Recipe

Here’s an apple pudding recipe made with honey, brown sugar and stewed apples. Yum!

Chocolate Pudding Recipe

This chocolate pudding recipe could also be called a cocoa pudding recipe, since you can make it with either chocolate or cocoa. And it’s sweetened entirely with honey.

Baked Custard Recipe

There’s no sugar at all in this old baked custard recipe.

Honey Candy Recipes:


Honey Squares Recipe

Honey squares are an old-fashioned candy sweetened with honey and brown sugar.

Honey Caramels Recipe

Here’s a caramels recipe that uses both honey and sugar to produce a buttery, creamy treat.

Honey Almond Divinity Recipe

Though sweetened primarily with sugar, this divinity recipe combines honey and almonds to add a unique flair to one of the most popular of homemade candies. This recipe for divinity requires a fair amount of work, but it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect to achieve the divine without some effort, would it?

French Nougat Recipe

This French nougat recipe is made with lots of honey, and is described as a marshmallow-like candy. It’s a honey recipe from an 1899 cookbook.

Honey Taffy Recipe

Use this taffy recipe to add a taste of honey to a candy classic. How long has it been since you’ve had a good old-fashioned taffy pull? Well, that’s too long!

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