Dutch Honey Syrup

Fall arrived properly this week — the maples along the back fence turning gold, the mornings dropping into the fifties, the air carrying that particular clarity that September in Kentucky brings, as if summer's humidity finally stepped aside and let you see the sky for what it is. I love fall the way I love most things — reluctantly at first, then completely. It means the garden is ending and the smoking season is starting and the oven gets used again after three months of being too hot to run. Fall means baking. Fall means Betty's kitchen.

Made apple butter. Eight pounds of apples from the orchard in Jessamine County — Jonathans and Winesaps, the old varieties that taste like they've been around long enough to have opinions about modern agriculture. Peeled, cored, quartered, cooked in the slow cooker with sugar and cinnamon and a little allspice for sixteen hours, until they broke down into a paste so smooth it looked like chocolate and tasted like autumn had been reduced to its essence and spread on bread. Betty made apple butter every October in a copper kettle over an outdoor fire, stirring with a wooden paddle for eight hours, and the smell carried down the hollow and the neighbors knew Betty was at the kettle and they brought jars because Betty always made more than she needed, which was the point.

Put up ten half-pints. The jars are dark and gleaming and they join the tomatoes and the salsa and the chow-chow on the shelf I built in the kitchen, which is starting to look like Betty's cellar in miniature, which is exactly what I intended without intending it. I'm building a cellar in Lexington, jar by jar, recipe by recipe, and I don't have a mountain over my head but I have a roof that I helped build on a house I'm paying for with a disability check, and that's close enough.

Connie spread the apple butter on toast Wednesday morning and closed her eyes and said this takes me back. She grew up in Lee County, an hour from Evarts, and her grandmother made apple butter too, different recipe, same kettle, same smoke, same Appalachia. We are two mountain people in a flat-land city, making the food of our grandmothers, and the food is what keeps the mountain inside us alive.

After Connie’s reaction to the apple butter Wednesday morning, I started thinking about what else I could put in a jar and set on that shelf — what other simple, sweet things her grandmother might have made alongside the kettle. Dutch honey syrup is one of those recipes that lives just below apple butter in the old-pantry hierarchy: humble ingredients, slow heat, something that rewards patience and tastes like it was made in a kitchen that knew what it was doing. We put a jar of this next to the apple butter and the chow-chow, and the shelf got one row closer to what I’m building toward.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes | Servings: 16 (about 2 cups)

Ingredients

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Instructions

Combine. In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk together the heavy cream, corn syrup, and sugar over medium heat until the sugar begins to dissolve, about 2 minutes.
Cook. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the syrup thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon, about 10–12 minutes. Do not let it scorch.
Finish. Remove from heat. Stir in the butter, vanilla extract, and salt until the butter is fully melted and the syrup is smooth and glossy.
Jar. Pour into clean half-pint mason jars while still warm. The syrup will thicken further as it cools. Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks. Rewarm gently before serving if desired.
Serve. Spoon over hot biscuits, toast, pancakes, or waffles. It goes alongside apple butter without competing — they belong on the same table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Dutch Honey Syrup — Another Jar for the Shelf