If you’ve ever taken out a bottle of honey only to realise that it’s become solid and yellow instead of runny and golden, you’ll know how hard crystallised honey can be to work with.
And while microwaving the jar for a couple of seconds offers a temporary fix, the effects don’t last forever.
Luckily, it seems there’s a solution that does ― adding just a dash of corn syrup, can solve the issue forever.
What? How?
To understand why it works, you’ll need to know what makes honey lump together in the first place.
Honey contains two sugars, glucose and fructose, as well as water. And when that water evaporates, the sugars fuse and clump.
“Crystallisation is the natural process by which the glucose in honey precipitates out of the liquid honey. Different varieties of honey will crystallise at different rates, and a few not at all,” Nick Hoefly, beekeeper at Astor Apiaries in New York City, told Martha Stewart online.
Corn syrup also contains glucose and fructose, but if offers maltotriose too ― a longer sugar molecule that ensures the other molecules don’t attach to one another.
Corn syrup also holds onto more water than honey, meaning it’ll stay runny for longer, America’s Test Kitchen says. And the addition of maltotriose means it’s unable to form lumps.
How do I add it?
The ideal ratio is two tablespoons of honey per 234g; clean a jar, add the honey and corn syrup mix to it, and place it in a saucepan containing about an inch of water before gently warming it.
If you want to keep your honey from crystallising again in the future, keep it in a tightly closed jar in a cool, dry, dark area and consume it within a couple of months.
If you’re like me and somehow always manage to abandon their fave honey, though, light corn syrup has the answers.