Canning: Spiced Lemon Honey

This weekend I set out to try a Honey Lemon Jelly recipe but at the last minute I spied this Spiced Honey in The Ball Complete Book of Preservation. This is a quick easy recipe that I think everyone should try. I opened a jar immediately after I processed them and make a cup of earl grey tea. The honey was fresh and lightly spiced. I discovered an additional benefit to my spiced honey a few days later, canned in my small 4 oz jars they are portable for someone like me who wants a bit of honey at work to stir into my Greek yogurt.

The cinnamon I used came from the Villa Vanilla Spice Plantation that I visited this summer in Costa Rica. I brought back a few huge bags of Ceylon cinnamon bark and about 10 fat vanilla beans. Up until now I have only made tea with the cinnamon bark.

I plan on tracking the flavors of the honey as I open a new jar to see how they age, so I will update this post with incremental updates.

Spiced Honey
(from The Ball Complete Book of Preservation)
Makes 6 8oz jars

2 ¾ Cups of Honey
1 lemon, ends removed and sliced into 6 slices
4 cinnamon sticks broken into pieces
10 whole cloves
Sterilize jars per manufacture’s instruction.

Place two cloves into each lemon slice. Heat honey over medium heat with cinnamon sticks on medium heat until the honey softens. Add lemon slices and boil for 3 minutes.

Pour into jars leaving ¼ head room in the jars. Process jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes, depending upon your altitude.