With Valentine’s Day coming up, it’s time for some “sweets for the sweet,” but unfortunately that usually means cloying unhealthy treats. It seems like every gift shop features their own private label jams and jellies products, but often those are made by mass producing co-packers using way too much refined sugar in the process.
Karen Bess is a local entrepreneur and former pastry chef with a better idea. Growing up in a large family where canning and preserves were a regular part of their diet, Bess leveraged her experience to create edible gifts for friends and family around the holidays. Her most popular presents were the honey-sweetened jellies that she created using an old cookbook recipe she found. Through her years as a professional chef, she continued to experiment with variations on these recipes until she settled on a few that were her favorites.
She has always been a strong proponent of using honey as her sweetener because of the cleaner flavors and health benefits of honey. The product of this philosophy is a line of natural jellies that she sells under her brand Honey Child Jellies. She sources her wildflower honey locally from Johnson's Honey Farm in Goodlettsville, an operation that has been producing honey continuously since 1918. An added benefit from using pure raw honey that has not been treated with heat is that it still contains all the beneficial pollen, enzymes and antioxidants that are destroyed by the heat during the process of pasteurization.
Bess has created a line of delicious jellies that make for fine locavore gifts. Among the flavors are traditional blackberry, blueberry, peach, strawberry and raspberry preserves along with slightly more exotic options such as cranberry, lemon, smoked peach, spiced apple, smoked strawberry and spicy tomato. Preserves have always been a way to recall the flavors of seasons past, and a slather of spicy tomato on a buttery biscuit topped with some smoky bacon is a really nice memory of summer.
Bess sells her products on her own website, or you can find them at retail locations around town including Corner Market Catering, Harvest LabCanna, Porter Road Butcher and Sperry's Mercantile. She also pops up seasonally at local farmers markets and at various festivals. At less than $8 a jar, Honey Child Jellies make for an inexpensive gift idea that also shows you care about where you live.
