Rant: My cousin swapping sugar for honey in the birthday cake recipe led to some weird looks

Lately I see folks trying to make family recipes healthier, but it doesn't always work out. At my niece's party, my cousin used honey instead of sugar in our great-grandma's vanilla cake, and it came out dense and kinda bitter. Everyone was too nice to say anything, but you could tell from the faces it was a miss. It just felt funny seeing a classic get changed up like that.

2 comments

2 Comments

sandra_black6d ago

Honestly, honey and sugar don't work the same in baking at all. Honey adds extra moisture and can throw off the whole texture, making cakes dense. You really need to reduce other liquids and add a little baking soda to fix the acidity. I get wanting to make things healthier, but with family recipes it's best to test changes first. That vanilla cake probably just needed its regular sugar to turn out right.

parkernelson6d ago

Yeah, read a thing about how honey messes with baking because it's got extra water and acid. Totally explains why my last cake experiment was so dense. Always gotta tweak the recipe if you're swapping sweeteners.