How to Use Honey in Place of Sugar in Cooking, Baking Making Jams, and Home Canning.

There are no hard and fast rules to substituting honey and sugar in recipes, but these guidelines should help you quickly decide how much honey to use in a particular recipe instead of table or cane sugar. 

In general, substituting honey for sugar seems to be a matter of taste. Some people use it cup for cup,  while others prefer 1/2 cup - 2/3 cup of honey per cup of white sugar. Reduce the amount of other liquids by 1/4 cup for every cup of honey used. Lower the oven temp about 25 degrees F to prevent over-browning and add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of honey to your batter. Honey is naturally acidic and the baking soda tempers it.

Diabetics should keep in mind that honey does not reduce the calorie or carbohydrate content of the sugar recipe, and thus is not an acceptable sugar replacement for people on diabetic diets.

Differences and Considerations Between Honey and Cane Sugar

1. Honey adds moisture that table sugar does not have.
2. Honey is much more dense (weighs more per cup)
3. Honey adds its own flavor to the finished product
4. Honey adds acid to a recipe,
5. Honey can cause baked foods to brown more quickly

Moisture: If you just swap honey for sugar the finished product would be rather soggy and sticky. But if you examine the rest of the ingredients in a recipe you can determine which items will absorb some of the water in the honey and increase those to compensate. Or you can take the opposite approach and reduce some liquid from the recipe.

Density: A cup of brown sugar weighs 6 ounces. A cup of granulated sugar weighs 8 ounces (1/2 lb or 1.1 kg). A cup of honey weighs 12 ounces (3/4 lb or 340 grams). So if you substitute honey in a recipe that calls for brown sugar, for example, you would be adding twice the amount of food. The result will be just as much sweetness, but it will be heavier. You may want to try adjusting the recipe to compensate.

Flavor: Honey has its own unique flavor. Generally it is a light and pleasing flavor but if it changes the desired taste of your recipe, there's not much you can do about it.  However, most people seem to like the flavor that honey adds!

Acidity: Honey adds an element of acidity to a recipe, you might want to neutralize it with a pinch of baking soda. In baking, add 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda per cup of honey. Most canning recipes prefer a little acidity, so no action is needed if you are using honey in place of sugar in canning.  

Faster Browning: Lower the oven temp about 25 degrees F to prevent over-browning

General recommendations:
These are general recommendations and since the type, quality and properties of the other ingredients affects how the sweetener acts, you may have to do some trial and error to get the exact substitution for the results you want.  The good news is that these "trials and errors" are usually tasty!

Baking (pies, cakes, cookies)

•  Use 3/4 cup of honey to replace one cup of sugar. Reduce other liquids by one-half cup for each cup of honey you add to the recipe. Lower the oven temp about 25 degrees F to prevent over-browning.

Canning and cooking (jams, jellies, fruits)

• To use honey in place of sugar, use 7/8 cup for every cup of sugar, and don't change the other liquids. According to food labs, honey may be substituted effectively for up to half the sugar called for in a canning syrup recipe.

Substituting honey for other sweeteners

• Molasses: To substitute molasses for honey, use exactly the same amount. The resulting flavor and color will be a bit darker and heavier. The reverse is true if you swap honey for molasses.

• Corn Syrup: To substitute honey for corn syrup, use exactly the same amount, but reduce any other sweet ingredients, since honey has more sweetening power than corn syrup.

• Dark Brown Sugar: Follow the equation for plain table sugar under General Recommendations, but also substitute a little molasses for a portion of the honey to retain the expected flavor. Brown sugar is just white sugar where the molasses have not been completely removed by refining. Brown sugar, on the other hand, attracts moisture, so it will keep baked goods from drying out so quickly. Also, brown sugar has some molasses in it, which adds moisture, and certainly changes the taste.