This spring the dandelions are plentiful. With only a couple smoky days, the sun manages to come out almost every day encouraging these yellow blossoms to open wide. Our ground is mostly clay so it takes a lot to get grass to thrive but the dandelions seem to do fine in it.
I had wanted to do something last year with dandelions but they were not that many and trying anything edible would have had the after taste of ash I imagine. We had so many smoky days in May last year.
I was skeptical about liking anything made with dandelions. I really expected a bitter taste. Even so, I am taking on the mantra of not wasting what is abundant on our property so I decided to give dandelion honey a try. I had the jars, lemon juice and sugar so I got busy picking some flowers.
I decided to pick on the driveway side of the house. Even though this is where our healthy grass is, there were thicker patches of dandelions here than on the other side of the house.
I plucked just the heads off the dandelions. Sometimes the stem would come as well but I would just break it off and toss it. I did have to pay attention and not grab flower heads too quickly. I came across many bees busy at work and I imagine one would get stung if you grabbed a bee.
We are lucky in that we have no pets currently and we don’t spray our lawn. Most people would have to consider both of those things before deciding to pick dandelions that would be used in food.
For this first batch I picked half a pail. I could have picked 50 times that amount (or more) but I wanted to see how much work was involved and whether or not I would like the taste.
The next task was removing the greens from the yellow flower petals. The green parts are the bitter pieces. Because I wasn’t sure whether any greens left would wreck the whole batch, I painstakingly removed every neck of each flower. That half pail took about three hours.
I had to squash many No-see-ums and a few small spiders and beetles as they emerged from the flowers. Otherwise, the task was easy even though it took a long time.
After you have just yellow petals left, put them in a large pot and just cover with water. The flowers float so you have to push them down. I didn’t measure water at this point but took a guess how much was needed.
Bring this to a boil and boil ten minutes. Turn off the heat and let the flowers steep over night.
The next morning, strain the liquid using a colander double lined with cheesecloth. I let mine drip for at least an hour while I had my morning coffee. I twisted the cheesecloth to get more liquid out.
Measure the liquid. Add the same amount of sugar. Add 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice for each cup of liquid. The lemon juice helps with the shelf life and it doesn’t overpower the dandelion taste.
Put all this back into the large pot on the stove. You are reducing it down by almost half. I used a candy thermometer and found that at 220°, the mixture had thickened a bit but was still runny. This took a long time…30-45 minutes and once it gets to about 190°, you have to stir to keep the sugar from burning or boiling over.
You can carefully spoon out a bit and let it cool on a plate to test the consistency. It cools pretty fast. I had read that 230° was the same as liquid honey but, for me, it would have been too thick. You also have to keep in mind that it can’t be kept in the cupboard once open so being cold in the fridge will thicken it a bit as well.
I heated my lids and rings on the stove and boiled water in the kettle to pour into jars to heat them. It took so long to reduce it down that I had to reheat the kettle a couple times and kept the lids on low to stay hot.
Here is the way it looks after it is jarred.
Was it worth the half hour of bending and picking, the three hours of cleaning flowers and the hour standing over the stove. YES!! It tastes wonderful!! It actually tastes like bought honey.
I liked it so much that I went out the next day and picked a full pail, cleaning the flowers for six hours. I froze half the petals for a future batch and cooked the rest the next day.
My cutting board is still yellow but my fingers have returned to their normal colour.
Whatever amount of flowers you pick, add double the water. The next day add 1:1 ratio of strained liquid and sugar plus the 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice per cup of liquid. My first batch had 5 cups of liquid/sugar and I ended up with 4 cups of honey. The second batch had 7 cups liquid/sugar and I got 6 cups of honey.
Here is not much information out there about the health qualities of dandelions. From what I could find, the flowers contain potassium and antioxidants.
I may try to make some Nasturium and Wild rose petal honey using the same process just to see how the taste differs.
So, when life gives you dandelions, definitely choose to make dandelion honey.
Really! Awesome!