In almost every bakery in the United States, from cake decorators to artisan bread bakers, there resides a container of honey ready to be used to enhance a recipe. Upscale cake bakeries, such as Torrance Bakery in Torrance, California, use honey for its functional ability to hydrate cakes and prevent them from drying up. Deerfield Bakery in Deerfield, Illinois, uses honey in its line of gluten-free products to impart a sweet flavor, naturally.

These two examples represent a small sample of honey uses in the baking industry. As a sweetener, honey imparts exceptional flavors in breads, tortillas, cookies, crackers, sweet goods, and fillings and toppings. More importantly, it sweetens bakery foods naturally, and allows bakers a "clean label" alternative to other sweeteners.

And although honey sweetens almost all bakery foods, the ingredient also performs a variety of other tasks in bakery food formulas:

• Extended Shelf Life: Every baker wants products that remain soft and eatable for as long as possible. Reducing spoils is smart business, and doing so with a natural ingredient ensures a moist product that does not contain an ingredient list laden with hard to pronounce chemical names.
  
  When used as a shelf life extender, honey has two advantages. The ingredient's fructose content holds in a bakery food's moisture, thus reducing dry products. Honey' high acidity (average pH 3.91) also inhibits mold growth.
• Natural Attributes: In the last few years, bakers have pushed the limits of creating bakery foods that not only taste great, but also are healthful. The trend toward more natural, "simple" bakery foods has cast a spotlight on honey and its many natural benefits.
  
  Honey acts as a natural sweetener in a variety of bakery foods, as well as imparts desirable flavors and colors. Through this one ingredient, bakers can naturally enhance a bakery food's taste, sweetness and color with a familiar ingredient that consumers desire.

From sweetening products to increasing shelf life, honey's form, function and versatility has proven valuable to bakers of all sizes and specialty.

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