Fennel Honey
The technical word for what we are making here is an electuary, which is a paste that is a mixture of powdered herbs and honey. You can get the fussiest of eaters to agree to eat these pastes. The thing I love about them is there are endless options and everyone can make these to suit their taste. Kids really enjoy making, and of course eating, these. This recipe uses fennel but you can switch that out for a whole variety of herbs. Some of my favorite herbs to use for honey's are fennel seed, rose petals, lavender, lemon balm and cardomom.
This recipe makes enough honey to fill a small jar. I reuse jars whenever I can so for a honey paste like this I generally use a small jar of around 4oz.
Start with around 1oz or 3tbsp of dried herbs and grind them to a thickness that suits you. My preference is to keep ingredients quite coarse and in this case I grind the fennel until it has the texture of ground coffee. But you can go as snooth or coarse as you like here. I always use a mortar and pestel so sometimes the thickness is driven by my enthusiasm for create a powder.
For the honey I always use raw, unfiltered organic honey. If you can get locally produced even better. Pour your honey into the jar and add about half of the ground herb.
Mix well and taste as you go, adding as much of the remaining fennel as you like.
You can eat this straight off the spoon, or roll into small balls before consuming.
The raw honey is a natural preservative, so it should last for about a year.
Remember not to give honey of any kind to kids under 1 years old as it can cause infant botulism.