6 Pastry Chefs On Their Favorite Honeys

If collecting honey seems excessive, consider the number of hot sauces in your fridge: The best bottle for burritos is different than your go-to for Buffalo wings, and you’d never cross your Hatch green chile with your sriracha. According to pastry chefs, the same mentality holds for honey. Depending on the floral source (that is, the plants a certain group of bees visit for nectar), the resulting honey can be light and floral, deep and molasses-y, or anything in between. Having a variety of uniquely flavored honeys on hand—and knowing when to use each one—unlocks a world of flavor you can’t access with a bear-shaped bottle alone.

Unsurprisingly, when asked about what varieties of honeys they turn to again and again, the pastry (and sweets-inclined) chefs I talked to shouted out local farms and apiaries as their favorite suppliers. Follow their lead by visiting a farmers market near you and sampling whatever is produced nearby; since honey is made in all 50 states, there’s undoubtedly a type or two unique to your region.

Read on to see what kinds of honey pastry chefs around the country swear by. You can use this list as a buying guide at the market, but I've also provided links to similar varieties that can be purchased online.

Erika Chan, executive pastry chef of The Publican, Publican Quality Meats, and Café Cancale, Chicago

“I love to experiment with all kinds of honey, as long as they're natural and locally sourced. I fell in love with watermelon honey when I went to Bread Camp with Greg Wade (head baker at Publican Quality Bread) last summer. It’s made by bees that pollinate solely on watermelon blossoms, and to me it tastes like Swedish Fish candy! I got it from a local farm in the Midwest, but I’ve seen all kinds of different honey varieties at our local farmers' market. For baking, I tend to prefer darker honey; I find the flavor comes through better in baked goods. I’ll even reduce it to intensify the honey notes.”

Fabián von Hauske Valtierra, chef and co-owner of Wildair and Contra, NYC

"I love using manuka honey. It's a monofloral honey, which means it comes from one species of flower—in this case from the nectar of the manuka tree. The first time I had this type of honey was when I worked at Attica in Melbourne, where we used it for a simple dessert with sweet cream and mandarins. Ever since then, I think of honey as a seasoning for desserts. If you need to accentuate sweetness, try manuka honey instead of sugar. It brings a lot of floral notes. At the restaurant, we ripple it with passion fruit ice cream and whipped cream to make a semifreddo."

Anna Posey, pastry chef and owner of Elske, Chicago

"For service, I use honey from a local apiary in Burns Harbor, Indiana. Their honey is very clover-y. It's lighter, so it's perfect for the honey syrup I make to top my sunflower seed parfait dessert. We also get bulk barrels of delicious amber honey from Ellis Family Farms. Amber honey is little darker, with more caramel notes, which makes it perfect for bread; I use it in my Parker house rolls."

"For personal use, I’m such a fan of honeycomb. It’s almost unbelievable to me that bees can produce such an incredible treat! Kress Apiary also makes this stuff that they say is 1:1:1 bee pollen, royal jelly, and honey, and I have a spoonful most mornings. Bob Kress said he started making it many years ago, when royal jelly became a 'health food trend.' He puts in way more royal jelly than you’d be able to find in any health food store. It’s very creamy, fresh, and grassy. Who knows if there are actual health benefits, but it’s really, really good in mint tea!"

Jessica Koslow, chef and owner of Sqirl, Los Angeles

"We get a lot of honey from the farmer's market and then ferment it in order to add it to our dishes at the restaurant—in dressings for savory applications, and in buttercreams for sweet applications. We like to get more neutral honeys for this fermentation process, like orange blossom. Personally, avocado honey is my go-to for flavor; adding it on top of anything is so special. I eat it on toast just by itself."

Camille Cogswell, pastry chef at Zahav and executive chef at K'Far, Philadelphia

"I am totally enamored with avocado honey. While I’m a huge fan of more familiar, light and bright honeys, avocado honey has an intrigue and seductiveness that gets me thinking about it long after tasting. It’s got a darker profile, with a deep, robust flavor similar to molasses, but without the intense bitterness. It's also less sweet than most honey, so it packs a lot of flavor without that cloying quality. These characteristics make it a nice component in savory dishes: gamey meats, roasted vegetables, or flavorful grains like rye and barley. In desserts it would be great with roasted fruit, cream, and nut-forward cakes."

Natasha Pickowicz, pastry chef at Flora Bar and Cafe Altro Paradiso, NYC

"We're lucky to work with a lot of beautiful honey varietals, but I'm completely devoted to the super versatile 'Summer Blossom' pure raw honey made by the Finger Lakes-based Davis Natural Honey. The scent is flirty and floral, with pops of clover and Cayuga-grown wildflowers. It's luscious and clean. I like to boil the honey in a wide pan, just to the point of smoking, and use its concentrated essence to flavor our ice creams."