Eva Crane Honey Recipes

Like any hobby, beekeeping has many secrets which are only revealed through research, gossip, and time. Many of these secrets may never reveal themselves to the casual dabbler. I believe one such secret is the name of Eva Crane.

Eva’s name came up in a conversation I had with Rich Wieske, the current (2022) President of the Michigan Beekeeper’s Association. Rich thought it was Eva who said, and I’m paraphrasing, “After 20 years of keeping bees, I’ve just now become a beginner.” The message being that bees are difficult to learn and there is never an end to the learning process, even for those masters who have decades of experience. I once found a source which recounted the same story, except it did not attribute such a quote to Eva, but one of the grumpy old men in her bee club. Nonetheless, I retained Eva’s name and have since come to adore her.

Eva was an amazing person on the levels of Einstein, or Newton. I’ll just take a moment to highlight her most impressive accomplishments as her unabridged biography is available elsewhere. She was originally trained in Mathematics at King’s College in England. However, she earned her PhD in Quantum Mechanics, which was a first for women in that time. On her honeymoon, she was gifted a beehive which lead to many years of bee research. Bees took Eva to over 60 countries and she wrote about her research and adventures. Many of her papers uncover and document the anthropology of ancient beekeeping and her works have been archived in the Eva Crane Trust, which is completely free to read at www.evacranetrust.org. The documents in the archive are of the highest quality and readability. Most are no longer than 4 or 5 pages one might find in a small novel. I highly recommend that beekeepers browse the archive for topics of interest.

In a few of the Eva Crane documents, she has inserted recipes, which I am making available here since I find that new beekeepers do not know about the Eva Crane archives. I hope these recipes will spark interest for folks to explore the archives themselves. Links to the original Eva Crane articles are provided. I have also taken the liberty of converting the units into modern, American, baking units.

Honey Orange Cake

This recipe comes from ECTD_001, “Honey” (1945)

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups self-rising flour

8 tbsp butter or margarine

1/3 cup of honey

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

3 or 4 tbsp milk

2 1/4 cup candied orange peel

To make: Cream together the butter, honey, and sugar. Add the beaten egg and sieved flour alternatively, and then the milk, mixing the ingredients well. Finally, mix in the orange peel (which may easily be candied at home.) Bake for about an hour in a moderate oven (380 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Honey Truffles

This recipe comes from ECTD_001, “Honey” (1945)

Honey-Chocolate-Truffels Eva Crane Honey Recipes

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter or margarine

1/4 cup of honey

1/2 cup cocoa

1/4 cup dried milk powder (dry)

Caster or Baker’s sugar

To make: Beat together the butter and honey, add the cocoa and dried milk and beat well. Leave overnight to harden, then roll into balls and coat with caster sugar.

If you are having trouble finding local honey in your area, another great resource is http://www.localhoneyfinder.org/

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