Hive got a secret: Use honey instead of sugar

So what, exactly, makes honey such a popular ingredient?

"Honey is so versatile. Honey is used all over the place," said John Brandt-Lee, chef at Avalon Restaurant, in West Chester and a longtime advocate of using local honey.

"It is a great emulsifier," he said. "It is great at bringing things together."

By way of example, he cited two of his favorite vinaigrette recipes, balsamic-honey and orange-vanilla. In the first, honey binds the olive oil and balsamic vinegar the way a raw egg would, he said, but without the health risks that come from raw eggs.

"It adds a nice sweetness, which cuts a little of the acidity of the vinegar," he said.

In his other vinaigrette, honey helps sweeten orange juice after it has been reduced, a process that can turn the juice bitter.

"The honey and the orange blend together very, very well," he said. "They're very harmonious. I still get the orange, and it complements the honey very nicely."

Sean Weinberg, chef at Malvern's Restaurant Alba, uses honey in place of sugar whenever possible.

"If I can replace table sugar with a natural product like honey, in my mind, it's healthier," said Weinberg, who became interested in honey while living and studying in Italy and learning about the slow-food culture there.

"I kind of like the way honey sweetens things. . . . If you cut back on sugar, there's a fine line between being not sweet at all and being too sweet. Honey brings a roundness to things."

Among his specialties is a honey-based glaze for his woodfire-roasted duck that includes crushed fennel, mustard and cumin seeds, along with red-wine vinegar and water.

He also makes a woodfire-grilled Italian bread with goat cheese that is drizzled with honey and sea salt. "It sounds so simple, but it's great," he said.

Dean Browne, a brewer at Philadelphia Brewing Co., who makes mead as a side project, says that there's nothing like local, raw honey for his projects. "I like to try as much to get local honey, so that kind of trumps other flavors," said Browne, a brewer for more than 20 years. "More often than not, [in this area], you wind up with wildflower honey or clover honey."

To make mead, Browne heats a honey and water mixture - though not to the boiling point, so as not to remove the aromatics - and adds an acidic product, such as citric acid. Once the mixture cools, he adds yeast. The mead is fermented for at least 30 days, though he prefers six months or more.