This year’s round of chocolate-dipped comb honey didn’t work out as well as last year’s.

I messed up the chocolate tempering process. Tempering is the process of warming up the chocolate to a certain temperature and then lowering the temperature to recrystallise the magic crystals inside so that it creates a shine and snap to the chocolate once it hardens. Basically I burnt the chocolate. The flavour isn’t as good as last year’s.

The comb seems too chewy as well. One is easily left with a wad of chewed up wax in the end. I added nuts this year to counteract any chewiness, but I don’t think it makes much difference. While everything is edible and tastes okay, there’s room for improvement in this batch.

Last year’s honey had a strong earthy flavour and the wax was really soft. This year the wax had a light flavour that didn’t produce much of a punch on the old taste buds when mixed with the chocolate.

I plan to make comb honey in the upcoming season just for this. Soft and easy-to-eat comb honey. I think the trick is to remove the frames of honey as soon as the bees have sealed them with wax, what some call virgin wax. When I leave the comb honey around for too long, the wax hardens and becomes more chewy. The virgin wax pretty much melts in your mouth and disappears. Add some chocolate and nuts to that magic and, I don’t know, it could be alright.