My latest and greatest foodie gig is reviewing products from Honey Ridge Farms. I took this job because honey is the most awesome food, and over the past couple years tweaking my diet to suit my PCOS and my body’s inability to properly process sugar, honey has been a godsend. It really is a natural wonder. There is a reason that it has been eaten by humans for over 10,000 years, and why there has been so much attention in the past couple years to the disappearance of bees in documentaries such as The Vanishing of the Bees . Anything that can used from anything to a sweetener, a medicine to heal wounds and rashes, to an embalming fluid gets an A++ in my book. I mean, in Hinduism, honey is one of the five elixirs of immortality. You can’t get a better review than that!

My first shipment was three honey and fruit cremes. Honey Ridge farms has an incredible product line up, and not only are they Kosher certified, but the farm donates money to help fund research to promote bee colony health. When one-third of our food source depends on honeybee pollination, this is good news!

I tasted them all and they were amazing. I knew I had to make something to highlight them. And what better to do that than Honey buns!? This pretty baby is the raspberry version.

As we know, I don’t really have a sweet tooth, so you might find that you want to ice these as is traditionally done, but I prefer to just let the delicious fruit and honey flavors shine through. I used a basic dough recipe from The Pioneer Woman, a really great blog I have turned to for over 5 years that has now become a show on The Food Network.

Serves – Everyone. This recipe made 3 batches of 14 rolls, including the stubby end pieces, as I gifted them to get a good response to how the recipe turned out. : )

Nutrition – its obviously carb and sugar laden, which is why you eat them in the morning while you still have all day to burn it off.

Ingredients –

dough-
1 quart whole milk
1 cup oil – I used 3/4 cup canola and 1/4 olive, and added oil to my grocery list haha.
1 cup sugar
2 packages Active Dry Yeast, 0.25 Ounce Packets
8 + 1 cups AP flour
1 teaspoon (heaping) baking powder
1 teaspoon (scant) baking soda
1 Tablespoon (heaping) sea salt

filling –
1/2 stick melted butter
sugar
honey creme

What to do…

First heat the milk, oil, and sugar in a large pot over medium heat to just below a boil. Set aside and cool to warm. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit on the milk for 1 minute.

Add 8 cups of the flour and stir, then cover with a clean kitchen towel and set aside in a relatively warm place for an hour. Then remove the towel and add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and the remaining 1 cup flour. Stir.

Preheat the oven to 375°F and flour your rolling surface.

Take 1/3 of the dough and roll in to a rectangle about 1/2″ thick. Marvel at how fluffy and nice it is and wish you could use it as a pillow. Then pour 1/3rd of the melted butter on it and use your fingers to spread it around. Sprinkle lightly with sugar. Now, spreading sticky substances is fairly difficult. You could heat it, but its going to heat in the oven and spread anyways, so its best to just pour it randomly over the surface. Ugly food, people.

lemon

raspberry

Then start gently rolling the dough over itself until you have a nice log of dough, and using sculpting wire or a good sharp knife, cut in to 1″ size pieces and place in a greased pan. You should put them about 1/2″ apart.

Now, I got excited on the lemon because i did them first, and I stuffed them in to a round cake pan and popped it straight in to the oven while I worked on the raspberry and blackberry. This was stupid. They needed more space, and you need to cover your pan with a towel and let rise for another 15 minutes before baking. Otherwise you get left with this ugly but yummy mess.

I properly rested the other buns, and they came out perfectly.

Consensus – The honey cremes melted and blended with the butter and sugar perfectly, soaking the bottoms of the buns and keeping the insides moist and lovely. They are warming and sweet without hurting your teeth, and oddly, even though they came out a bit special, the lemon ones are the favorite so far! Lemon is such a perfect combo with honey though. I mean, from tea to dessert, they really were meant to be together. These were a super appropriate last gig to work on with The Bee, and he will still be helping out…and everyone who has tried them so far has agreed that they are a success. So head to Whole Foods and get you some Honey Ridge Farms Stuff!