What is Maine Mousse Creamed Honey?
Maine Mousse is a raw honey product that uses only pure, natural honey and organic fruits and spices. It's called 'creamed honey', but no dairy of any kind is involved. We're sure you've pulled a jar of honey out of your cabinet only to find that it has crystalized. We use the process of crystallization to magically turn pure honey into a thick, creamy concoction that is silky perfection! It's texture can be compared to creamy peanut butter and it sits on a spoon, or a scone or bagel like peanut butter would.
Maine Mousse really has to be tasted to be appreciated. We provide samples for people to taste at the farmers markets, and it is the rare person who doesn't purchase a jar or two. Customers expect it to taste like pure 'runny' honey, just feel thicker, but there is something about the process of creating the creamed honey that makes it taste richer and a little buttery. We call the pure creamed honey "Honey Butter' for that reason.
How Creamed Honey is Made
The process for making creamed honey is fairly labor intensive. We combine a small amount of 'starter', or crystalized honey that has been pulverized until the crystals are tiny nand completely undetectable, and add a 60 poound bucket of raw honey. It is blended very slowly over a period of 2 days until it is thoroughly mixed. We used to do it the old fashioned way.... by hand. But last summer we bought a Lyson honey creamer, and the process is easier. Once we created our first batch of creamed honey, we were able to save small buckets of that product to use as 'starter' for the next batch. As it is blended the honey mixture starts to thicken and turn much lighter. Then we know it is time to bottle it. After 4-5 days at a temperature of 57 degrees, it is ready to sell. We always save some back to start the next batch because it's easier to use creamed honey for our 'starter' than to pulverize the crystalized honey.
Maine Mousse will last and not re-crystalize at a room temperature between 57-67 degrees. In the summer, it will melt if temperatures go above 70 degrees so you may want to keep it in a cooler area or refrigerate it to maintain the delicious moussey-ness! It reacts to heat an cold a lot like peanut butter, too. It will really firm up in the fridge
Our Flavors
We have created our signature blends of Maine Mousse and plan to expand the line if we create products that we believe in. Cinnamon Maine Mousse has sweet, organic Ceylon Cinnamon mixed in. Organic Ginger Maine Mousse hits your tongue a few seconds after the sweet honey butter taste. Blueberry Lemon is our salute to the best state of all, Maine! Sweet and tart, Orange Cranberry Maine Mousse is bright and a beautiful pink color. We also sell seasonal flavors like Pumpkin Spice.
Developing New Flavors
We are very discerning about the products that we actually bring to market. Our development of a product can take many months. We spent over 6 months creating both Blueberry-Lemon and Orange-Cranberry. But there are a few organic flavors that we believe in. For example, we are working on a honey that combines the flavor of our favorite bourbon, Woodford Reserve, with our all natural raw honey. Since we only add dry, organic flavors to our honey and we refuse to use artificial flavoring, this one is proving to be a challenge. The Bourbon Honeys that you may have tasted mostly use bourbon flavoring, like caramel. We aren't doing that. You also cannot add liquid to honey products or they can ferment, and not in a good way. Of course, using real bourbon would also exceed 1/2 of 1% alcohol content that is allowed in 'non-alcoholic' products Maine, so that't not an option! That wasn't our goal, anyway. So we are still working to find the combination of natural, pure flavors that will meet our standards for purity and quality, keep the State of Maine happy that we aren't selling honey that will get people 'buzzed' and taste amazing. Usually, when we love it, our customers do, too. Stay tuned.......
We are also exploring other combinations of Maine Mousse, including Chai, Tumeric, Lavendar/Lemon and Elderberry. We source all our ingredients from certified organic sources. We'd love to hear from you regarding a flavor that you would like for us to explore!