I didn’t even think about this. I didn’t know about any of the scientific studies that have shown all the wonderful reasons to enjoy elderberry syrup when I was scaling a concrete wall and inching down a steep incline to reach the river bed where a neighbor had spied a wild elderberry tree.

I just knew I wanted to make some of this delicious syrup myself and it was worth the climb. Plus, y’all know I’m a maple syrup fanatic, so it stands to reason I love elderberry syrup. Read more about maple goodness here and grab a copy of my book if you want to know more on that topic.

How to Make Elderberry Syrup

Ingredients

2 cups berries (fresh, frozen, or dried elderberries)

4 cups water

1 TB fresh, grated ginger

1 cinnamon stick

Maple syrup (roughly 1-2 cups)

Directions

1. Remove berries from stems. This is the most time consuming part, because these berries are small. 
2. Simmer all ingredients except maple syrup, over medium heat for 30 minutes
3. Crush berries with fork occasionally, as they simmer
4. Strain berries out of juice, with one more crush session, to get out all the juice
5. Add 1 1/2 cup maple syrup for every 2 cups of syrup that you have
6. Store in fridge for months, or bottle in pint jars and hot water bath can for 10 minutes.

Recipe Notes

• Don’t have fresh elderberries? Use these dried elderberries, in the same ratio as fresh berries. With 1 pound of dried elderberries you can make roughly eight 16-oz bottles of syrup… way more than my little recipe makes. And buying dried berries will be a huge savings over buying elderberry syrup! Code SOULYRESTED saves $$!
• Want to make it but have all the guess work taken out for you? Make your own elderberry syrup using this kit. Use code SOULYRESTED and save!
• Don’t have the time to make your own? This family’s elderberry syrup is amazing, not to mention the best price I’ve found! And code SOULYRESTED saves 15%!
• If you purchase this elderberry syrup you can even choose if you want your syrup sweetened with honey or maple syrup! (nd code SOULYRESTED saves 15%!)

More Articles About Syrup

How to make Lilac Syrup

The Hands-Down Easiest Way to Make Simple Syrup

How to Make Maple Syrup–20 Tips for the Beginner

Using Lilac Syrup & Elderberry Syrup to make Kombucha

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I’m sharing my Easy Simple Syrup Recipe & you might become obsessed. I know I am.

This post contains affiliate links. Go here to read the full (ultra fun) legal disclosure about that.

The hardest part of this recipe might just be deciding what blooms you want to turn into floral simple syrup. Read on for inspiration in that department.

Easy Simple Syrup Recipe

Some days you want “easy,” right?

In general, I thoroughly believe “simple” doesn’t often mean “easy.” Heck, I named my whole podcast off of this belief.

But sometimes… once in a while… simple gets pretty darn close to being easy. And I’m over here doing a jig in my muck boots I’m so excited about this latest example.

What is simple syrup made of?

Standard simple syrup is made up of sugar and water. But today we’re talking about floral simple syrup, so it’s made up of 3 ingredients, well, kindof. It’s still just water and a sweetener, but the water is first infused with flowers.

Before I discovered how easy it could be to make floral simple syrup, my go-to way to make simple syrup was to boil water and sugar, then simmer the flowers in the sugar water for 10 minutes.

Side note, in case you’re wondering, I used to make lilac syrup with refined sugar. Before I became a sugarmaker and started writing my book, Sweet Maple.

The more I learned about all-natural, complex sugars compared to refined sugar, I try to stick with the good stuff theses days. My #1 go-to is coconut sugar (pssst… it’s made from the flower’s nectar and tastes nothing like coconut) if I can’t use maple syrup, or honey, or make my own maple sugar.

See my Guide to Choosing the Best Sugar for more thoughts on that.

What are the disadvantages of simple syrup?

The only disadvantage I find to simple syrups is that they do have a pretty short lifespan in the refrigerator. The high sugar content tends to grow mold if unused for too long.

But there are three easy solutions:

1. Only make the amount you will use within 2-3 weeks.
2. Freeze your simple syrup in ice cubes, to add a few to your summertime drinks before serving.
3. Water-bath can your simple syrups and enjoy them all year long.

Do you have to boil water for simple syrup?

Typically directions for making simple syrup will tell you to boil your water so that your sugar can dissolve well.

And floral simple syrup recipes will tell you to steep your blooms in a pan of hot water on the stove, to extract the floral flavor into your water.

But if you choose to use maple syrup or honey instead of refined sugar you can add your sugar to cold water.

And if you steep your blooms in a jar of hot water until the water has totally cooled to room temperature you will have amazing floral water without any need to stand over a hot stove.

The easiest way to make simple syrup

No need to dissolve your sugar in boiling water or stand over the stove while you steep your blooms in a simmering pot. Instead, check out my new go-to plan for many future simple syrup creations.

This is simple syrup in 3 simple steps, that you can make with any floral edible flowers and all-natural sugar!

After removing your blooms from the plant or bush (leaving the green sepals and base of the flower behind), fill a mason jar with the fragrant blooms. The size of the jar is up to you (or dictated by your plethora of blooms). See below for inspiration about what blooms you could use for making simple syrup.

Bring a small pot of water to a boil on your stove. Or just dispense the hot water right into your jar, if you have an instant hot water heater. Bill got me mine about 7 years ago–he scored some mega brownie points that mother’s day–and it is still working beautifully every day since.

Then you want to let your floral blooms sit in the jar, covered with the hot water, until the water has cooled to room temperature. You’ll notice the water slowly and subtly taking on the color of the blooms. Below you can see the slightly purple tint to the lilac water and the yellow tint to the forsythia water.

After your water is cold to the touch (feel free to let it sit overnight if you’d like), strain out the flowers and toss them.

Now you’re ready to add honey or maple syrup to your pretty floral water.

You’ll want to add 1/4 cup honey or maple syrup for every 1 cup of water. And, of course, since it’s already a liquid sugar, it will mix in easily to your cold floral-infused water. No need to boil the floral water to dissolve it or to simmer your concoction for 10 minutes, which is the way I used to make a simple syrup

Well, before today that is.

You can store your syrup in the refrigerator for weeks, maybe months. If you’d like to can some to enjoy in the heart of winter, see this article for those directions.

What flowers can you use in this easy simple syrup recipe?

Feel free to experiment with any edible bloom (that hasn’t been sprayed with any chemical pesticide of course). Keep in mind that the more fragrant the flower the more you will taste its floral notes in your syrup.

My favorite is lilac.

Some other edible flowers you could try include:

• Lilac
• Lavender
• Rose
• Honeysuckle
• Forsythia
• Dandelion
• Orchid
• Pansy
• Carnation
• Hibiscus
• Chamomile
• Tulips

Does it matter what kind of honey I use?

I always use raw honey, because any other honey has been processed.

Of course, if you’re adding honey to a recipe that requires you to heat it, the heat will destroy the nutritional benefits of the raw honey, so you might as well save a little money and use a processed honey. On the other hand, one of the beauties to this simple syrup recipe is that the honey is added to cool water, so it’s perfect for raw honey. Score!

I also recommend you find local honey whenever possible, not only to support your local businesses but also to help with allergies. You see, your local, raw honey is filled with your local allergens that are native to your area.

Since we are beekeepers, our honey is as raw and as local as honey gets. Even so, there is a time and a place in my kitchen for this amazing Tupelo Honey.

When I first met my friends, Brad and Deanna, the owners of Bee Wild Raw Honey, I was immediately captivated by their family and their business. When I tasted their tupelo honey, I was a fan for life.

This honey is the best I’ve ever tasted. No joke. In fact, I never joke about all-natural sweetener. But y’all know that.

Not to mention that when I find a company I love that makes a product I can’t live without, well, I gotta share it with you all.

So if you’re in the market for the best honey I’ve ever tasted, look no further than this tupelo honey from a family-run business in Florida.

AND, for a limited time only, try this deliciousness at 15% off!! Use this link and coupon code MAPLE. (Offer excludes gallons.) 

How do I use simple syrup?

My favorite use is in my homemade kombucha. Lilac Blueberry Kombucha is my favorite flavor I make.

But it’s also wonderful in a cup of warm tea. This is a tea I love made with lilac honey, but you could make the same thing with lilac simple syrup.

And I love making ice tea or lemonade that is sweetened with a floral simple syrup. Lilac Limeade is my favorite. (And my father-in-laws.)

And for an extra special friend, a jar of simple syrup is a perfect gif. Find more ideas and gift cards for gifting simple syrup right here.

Easy Simple Syrup Recipe, in 3 steps

To make the easiest simple syrup you’ve ever made, follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Fill a jar full of blooms with hot water.* (This instant & portable hot water boiler has been a game changer in my kitchen.)
2. After completely cool (overnight is fine), strain out flowers.
3. Add 1/4 cup of tupelo honey for every 1 cup of water.

*NOTE: run your jar under very warm water for a minute before filling a glass jar with boiling water, to allow it to pre-heat and avoid any breakage.

That’s it. It couldn’t be much simpler, or taste more delicious.

Print

Floral Simple Syrup

Ingredients

• 1 cup flower blooms (see options below)
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1/2 cup maple syrup or honey

Instructions

• Collect flowers and separate blooms from stems, removing green sepal leaves from under bloom as well.
• Place blooms in pint jar
• Fill jar to top with boiling water and let jar sit, open, on counter overnight or until totally cool.
• Strain out flowers.
• Add sweetener to your desired taste, typically about 1/4 cup of sweetener for every 1 cup of infused water.
• Place lid on jar and store in fridge for 2-3 weeks.

Notes

Run your jar under very warm water for a minute before filling a glass jar with boiling water, to allow it to pre-heat and avoid any breakage.

Blooms that make delicious simple syrup:

• Lilac
• Lavender1
• Rose
• Honeysuckle
• Forsythia
• Dandelion
• Hibiscus

More like this Simple Syrup Recipe:

3 Ways to Make Forsythia Syrup

Gifting Floral Simple Syrup

My Favorite Way to Use Lilac Syrup

How to add elderberry syrup to kombucha (& why!)

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. Psalm 52:8

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If I’m lucky, we’ve finally gotten all the buckets and maple-syrup-making tools cleaned and put away until next February, and our root cellar shelves are lined with golden jars of a dozen or more gallons of that amazing maple syrup we collected and boiled and bottled this year.

So this spring, while I longingly waited for our old lilac bushes to bloom so I could make lilac syrup and bottle my favorite DIY kombucha of all… Lilac Blueberry Kombucha… I made a golden flowery syrup.

And guys, I now have another syrup I’m pretty much in love with.

Below I share all three varieties of the forsythia syrups I made and bottled so you can choose your own favorite.

If you’d like to gift a jar of your simple syrup, print off these great gift cards.

Our lilacs planted here, all around our 220-year-old New England farmhouse, have quite a neat story to tell.

I wrote about our old farmhouse in these articles here.

And if you want my recipe for my favorite DIY floral carbonated soda you gotta check this out.

Is there any value to adding forsythia to my simple syrup?

I’ll admit that the forsythia flower doesn’t seem to pack the amazing punch that a more fragrant bloom, like lilac or lavender or rose, would add to a simple syrup. But it’s a nice, subtle taste and there is other value as well.

Forsythia, like so many plants, contains a lignan known as pinoresinol. These plant chemicals are important as antioxidants for our body… We eat them in food like sesame seeds and broccoli and we get lots of lignan in olive oil, which isn’t surprising, since forsythia are in the olive family of trees.

Forsythia also contains oleanolic acid, which is a natural compound that helps maintain a healthy blood pressure. They’ve been using forsythia in traditional Chinese medicine as an antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agent forever, so I figured it certainly can’t hurt to make some sweet delicious syrup with this pretty flower.

See my recipes below, and if you would like to know more about the medicinal properties of the forsythia, my friend Janet, over at Timber Creek Farm, has you covered in her article about the herbal health of forsythia.

How to Make Forsythia Syrup

Whichever recipe you want to try, they all start the same. Grab your clippers and a collecting basket, and collect some vibrant, new forsythia blooms. Preferably early in the morning, before the bloom is tired and spent.

Remove the blooms and pile them high in a mason jar. You can brush off any debris or bugs you encounter, or if you have more energy to invest in this than I did, you can rinse your blooms as well.

Fill your bloom-filled jar with boiling hot water. I love my instant hot water pot. I think it’s the one kitchen appliance I use the most every single day. (I list it and my other favorites right here.)

Let the floral-infused water sit many hours, until it’s cooled completely, or even overnight is fine. Then choose a recipe from below.

Maple Forsythia Syrup

1 1/2 cup forsythia-infused water (directions above)

3/4 cup maple syrup

Mix the maple syrup into your cold forsythia water and store in mason jar in refrigerator for many weeks (probably many months).

yield: 1 pint maple forsythia syrup

Lilac Forsythia Syrup

1 1/2 cup forsythia-infused water (See “How to Make Forsythia Syrup” above)

3/4 cup lilac sugar (directions for making lilac sugar here)

3-4 blueberries (optional)

Bring forsythia water to a boil. Add blueberries for color, if you would like.

As soon as the water is boiling, Immediately remove your pan from the heat and stir in lilac sugar until it dissolves.

Store your lilac forsythia syrup in a mason jar in the refrigerator for many weeks (probably many months).

yield: 1 pint lilac forsythia syrup

Forsythia Simple Syrup

1 1/2 cup forsythia-infused water (See “How to Make Forsythia Syrup” above)

3/4 cup sugar (you can use any white sugar, but I like this sugar. I pick it up at my local Aldis.)

3-4 blueberries (optional)

Bring forsythia water to a boil. Add blueberries for color, if you would like.

As soon as the water is boiling, Immediately remove your pan from the heat and stir in lilac sugar until it dissolves.

Strain out the dried lilac flowers and blueberries and store your lilac forsythia syrup in a mason jar in the refrigerator for many weeks (probably many months).

yield: 1 pint forsythia simple syrup

My favorite ways to use these syrups?

Honestly, my favorite way to use my simple syrups is pretty basic. I use it to sweeten beverages. While it seems oh-so-simple, it’s amazing what these simple syrups can do to an average old cup of tea, or seltzer water, or lemonade, or–my absolute favorite–DIY kombucha.

Think a tall cold glass of lilac lemonade on a hot August day or a big mug of warm lilac forsythia white tea on a cold snowy February morning.

Go here for my favorite kombucha recipes, some of which include these amazing syrups.

Other articles about all-natural sugar:

Making Lilac Simple Syrup

Making Lilac Sugar

Making a delicious salad dressing with raw honey

Making maple syrup–step by step.

“Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands.” I Thes. 4:11

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In fact, the secret about lilac sugar? It’s so easy anyone could do this… which makes me wonder why it’s not more common. It’s so easy, folks, it almost seems silly to write about it. I could almost say “grab some sugar, add lilac blossoms and enjoy.”

And of course it makes me sad that lilacs are only in bloom for such a short window of time each year.

Why I love lilacs

Last spring, after I started making dozens of jars of lilac simple syrup, a jar of thicker lilac syrup, lilac-infused honey, and–my absolute favorite kombucha ever–lilac blueberry kombucha, well I started wondering if I could harvest lilac blooms for a longer season.

If you love lilacs (or a great history story!), you’ll love reading this detail I recently learned about lilacs.

Or here’s another great story about an old house. (I happen to love both–great stories and old houses.)

I discovered this awesome online nursery (affiliate link) that has a wonderful selection of some hard-to-find items, so I decided to snoop around their site and see if there were lilac bushes that bloom at a slightly different time than my own, so I’d at least have some blooming on the homestead for a longer window each spring. Well I could NOT believe it when I discovered that Nature Hills Nursery had something called a Bloomerang Lilac Bush. Folks, this lilac blooms multiple times every year! Hello! I knew I needed this lilac.

I couldn’t believe how wonderfully packaged my bloomerangs were when they arrived on my farmhouse porch. And they were so mature! I had them in the ground within a day and have been longing for next spring already. I can’t wait to see if they bloom their first year and how long and how often they bloom. I’ll keep you posted.

But I am sidetracked, as usual… back to the sugar…

How to harvest your lilac blooms

It all starts with lilac blooms, of course, preferably ones at the height of the season, lush and full. Gently remove the bloom from the stem. If you just give them a slight tug, the bloom slides right off, detaching from the little green sepal at its base, and leaving the yellow pistil behind.

I used a few cups of blooms, but it’s really up to you and how vibrant or subtle of a flavor you want.

How to make lilac sugar

I layered white sugar, interspersed with layers of lilac blooms, in a quart-sized Ball jar.

EDIT to add: I wrote this many years ago, before I overhauled my kitchen and removed refined sugar. See my list of favorite sugars I use in my kitchen now here, on my list of My Favorite Ingredients.

I left a few inches open at the top, to allow for daily vigorous shaking, and put a lid on tightly.

I think next spring I’ll experiment with substituting my maple sugar in place of the refined sugar, and I’ll let you know what Maple Lilac Sugar tastes like. In fact, leave a comment below if you try any alternative to white, refined sugar that you like in the lilac sugar; I’m trying to move away from using refined sugar when I can and substitute with all-natural sugar–especially maple–whenever I can.

I placed the quart jar on my counter, where I’d remember to give it a good toss-and-tumble shake every day for a week or so. It was interesting to watch the sugar and the blooms change over time. The moisture and oils from the blooms interspersed into the sugar, which of course is what makes it so doggone delicious, and the blooms shriveled up to almost nothing.

After about a week, I poured the sugar out onto a baking sheet and let it air dry, to get rid of some of the moisture, so it would keep well on my counter for months (if of course I actually manage to not use it all up in a few weeks). At that point I could have simply poured it back in my jar. But I decided to run it through the food processor and incorporate the dried lilac in better with the sugar. A few spins, an easy pour into one of my favorite mason jars through a funnel, and, voila, my own honest-to-goodness heavenly lilac sugar. Right there in a jar on my counter beside my maple sugar. (If you’d like all the secrets to making amazing maple sugar, you’ll want to snag my ebook, Make Maple Sugar. The only difficult part to all of this is choosing which one I’ll use each time I want a special cup of tea.

How to use your lilac sugar

Using it in my cup of tea is my favorite way to enjoy lilac sugar–especially camomile tea or wild raspberry hibiscus. In case you’re wondering, Stash makes my favorite raspberry hibiscus. (affiliate link.)

It’s crazy yummy in baking too–think lilac shortbread or lilac sugar cookies. Mmmmmmm. Hint: to keep my lilac sugar cookies extra chewy, I only use yolk, no egg white. Bonus: Check out my subscriber library for my favorite-of-all-time sugar cookie recipe, that of course uses lilac sugar. The recipe is in my upcoming book, Sweet Maple, too. (Not a subscriber? That’s super easy. Go here.)

Or sprinkle it on top of fresh-cut berries for an extra special dessert. (I love this lid with this insert that I use on my mason jars for my maple and my lilac sugars. Go here for more details on those and other fun lids I love on my mason jars.)

You could even give beautiful little jars of lilac sugar as gifts or wedding favors!

But honestly, if I’m gonna use it in baking, my first thought is dusting it over my grandmom’s blueberry cake.

Then Katie Koskewich, a reader in Manitoba, Canada, blew my mind with yet another great idea. She uses her lavender sugar (the next floral sugar i’m gonna make, for sure) in an egg wash. Just beat one egg and a few teaspoonfuls of lilac sugar and brush it over a pie before baking. Mmmmmmm. Lavender and pies. It doesn’t get much better than that folks. Plus, Katie and I, up here in the cold north, need a little bit of summer on our pies all winter long, am I right, Katie?

If you’d like to upgrade your lilac blueberry cake with maple, you’ll want the amazing recipe you’ll find in A Sweet Taste, one of numerous–totally free–ebooks you’ll find in my resource library, open all the time to all of my subscribers. Sign up here and download A Sweet Taste right away:

And speaking of unique sugars, I’ve discovered I love my stir-fry seasoned with maple syrup. Yeah, totally random, but we just had this for dinner and oh. my. goodness! I told Holly, my awesome editor, that I had to add this one in at the last minute to my manuscript for Sweet Maple.

And the stir fry was delicious with some homemade kombucha, but what isn’t? My favorite kombucha? I make it with lilac simple syrup. Grab my recipe for Lilac Blueberry Kombucha right here.

If you’re in the market for your own lilac bush, I absolutely cannot think of anyone I’d recommend more than NatureHillsNursery.com. As the world’s largest online nursery they have the most amazing selection of wonderful, heritage, hard-to-find-elsewhere plants and trees. Yet they’re as friendly as a neighborhood nursery, which works out great for me, since I haven’t even seen a neighborhood in almost 5 years, since we moved to rural New England. And their horticulturalists are super knowledgable and actually get back to you with in depth answers to your questions.

By the way, I’m certain many other edible fragrant flowers make great sugars, from lavender to roses, what have you tried? Please share! I am always in the market for a new obsession.

“Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover – come to me!” Song of Solomon 2:13

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Growing mint

If you grow your own mint, you’re half way there. If you’re buying a bunch of mint at the store, you can actually use that mint to start growing your own! Just be sure to place your leftover mint in water. Use your bottom leaves for making your tea (so the stems are stripped at the bottom). Then simply fill a jar about 2 in. with water, and place your mint in light sun until it takes root . Then plant your mint and you’ll have it forever. (If only it was so easy to have more honey!)

Enjoying an invasive deliciousness

When you plant mint, by the way, keep in mind that it is very invasive. I pulled up a few pieces to show you. Just look at how it sends out roots and then sends little shoots right up through the ground, all along those roots.

Mint will take over a bed or garden in no time.

So we keep our mint, along with most of our other herbs, each in their own containers. I harvested all our mint before taking a picture, but I thought to snag a picture of the chives before harvesting those.

Drying mint

Once I harvest it, I dry my mint in a pretty interesting way that works wonderfully for me. Check out this post for my super-easy, no-mess technique for drying any herb in a paper bag. Yep. Don’t knock it. It really works.

Once it’s dry (that part does require patience. often month’s worth of patience), I simply remove the leaves and store them in a mason jar. I love using a flip-top lid like this one for all my herbs.

Sweetening my mint tea

While I personally enjoy a cup of hot tea made straight up from mint leaves and water, for a special treat lately I’ve enjoyed adding a teaspoon of my lilac-infused honey. It was super easy to make and man-oh-man is it delicious! I explain more about it in the fb live video you can view at the end of this post.

But, alas, I didn’t think I’d be very successful at infusing my honey with lilac, so I only made a tiny, half-pint jar’s worth. So after just a few mere cups of mint tea, I’m gonna need to switch my sweetener. Mind you, mint tea is very good without any sugar at all, but when I’m sitting down to a cup of tea in place of dessert in the evening I love to make it a luxurious tea.

After this decadent lilac honey I need another luxury, so I ordered top-of-the-line tupelo honey from Florida and wow is this amazingly delicious. I recently learned some fascinating facts about this wonderful honey. I’ll have to share the details with you in an upcoming post. But for now, trust me, this tupelo honey is crazy yummy. I’ve gotten to know the husband-and-wife team who run Bee Wild Raw Honey–Bradley and Deanna–and they’re truly awesome. (Bonus, if you call to ask them a honey question, not only are they experts, but they’ll give you the answer in the friendliest southern drawl you’ve ever heard.)

Plus this honey is the best I’ve ever tasted. No joke. In fact, I never joke about all-natural sweetener. But y’all know that.

Not to mention that when I find a company I love that makes a product I can’t live without, well, I gotta share it with you all.

So if you’re in the market for the best honey I’ve ever tasted, look no further than this tupelo honey from a family-run business in Florida.

If you’d like to one-up the deliciousness of this tea, you will LOVE this video about how to make your honey lilac-infused. –>

Another favorite homemade tea

I recently discovered how to make my new favorite caffeine free delicious cup of tea. The crazy thing is that it tastes like coffee. Add a little maple syrup and my morning is instantly perfect. Okay, maybe not perfect, but very delicious. Go here to see how amazingly easy it is to make your own caffeine-free, herbal, coffee-replacing tea.

And if you want a little encouragement about just how good tea can be for you, you’ll love this article and the podcast episode there as well.

Buzzing around the farm

In addition to our exciting new addition on the homestead, we have lemons starting to grow (although they look like limes right now), some aMAAYYzing maple kombucha brewing (I think I’ve almost figured this out!), and cucumbers growing out of our ears…

But wait. If you’re not following on instagram or facebook, I guess you don’t know what I’m talking about when I mentioned our new addition. They’re my new source of crazy elation… and sweet honey of our very own.

We brought home 3 hives last weekend! We still have so very much to learn, but can’t wait to do so while watching these wonderful ladies pollinate our crops and make us some amazingly yummy, all-natural, liquid sugar. My deep, secret dream is to some day not have to buy any refined sugar. Now how sweet would THAT be?

See our instastories of OperationBeeRehoming here. Just scroll back a few until you see a few crazy people and some bee hives in the back of a pick up truck. (yep.)

And listen in to one big problem we had with the location we chose to place the hives here on this fb live video.

And check out this gorgeous tree (affiliate link) at NatureHills.com if you too would love to grow your own lemons!

Some of my favorite tea products? That’s super easy! My most treasured tea-related awesomeness is my Instant hot water tank that sits on my counter, silently and beautifully keeping perfectly boiled water at my beckon call at all times. (And, yes, these are affiliate links.) I’ve had this wonderful hot water heater for 6 years and can’t imagine boiling water any other way.

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Click on the video link here to see just how easy it is to make mint lilac tea and find out when it’s NOT good to compost your tea–>

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post Warning: You May Become Addicted to this Tea first appeared on Souly Rested.

This week, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a few thrilling things here on the homestead, and while I wait I figured it was very fitting to share this perfect gift idea with you, including the gift cards to help make it extra easy for you. (Keep reading.)

The Exciting New Arrivals!

“What are you having delivered this week Michelle?” you may ask… at least I hope you do, cause I wanna tell everyone about my excitement!

The first arrivals are coming by the thousands…. winged, nectar-eating, pollen-carrying wonders… 

Yes, this still-learning-how-to-do-it-right sugarmaker is now taking on beekeeping too. And I can’t wait! Our three hives are coming this weekend. And boy I sure hope I don’t mess this one up!

And The Lilacs Too!

The other arrivals are for the bees, well, kinda. I have three beautiful new lilac bushes on their way from NatureHills.com. This spring when my lilacs all peaked and then quickly dropped their flowers in less than 2 weeks time, my lilac blooms were gone long before I had made all the lilac syrup, and lilac sugar, and lilac honey that I had wanted to make. So I reached out to the folks at NatureHills to ask if there were lilacs that bloomed longer or later in the season that would also survive a tough New England winter.

Well boy was I surprised! Not only did an expert get right back to me the same day, but boy did I love her answer! I’ll share more of those details with you in an upcoming post, once my exciting new lilac bushes are here.

Btw, yes, after realizing just how fantastic this online nursery is, I signed up as an affiliate, meaning if you do decide to order from them, then they”ll send me a few pennies to say “thank you.” (And it will never cost you one penny more.)

But don’t get me wrong, my earnings probably won’t even pay for my grapefruit I had for breakfast this morning, so I would never mention them to you if I didn’t love their customer service and their gorgeous plants. And every tiny way you support our homestead means so much to us. Seriously. (But isn’t it crazy how expensive a grapefruit it these days? But I digress…)

Wanna know more about floral infusion?

If you wanna try your hand at Lilac Simple Syrup, you’ll find all those details here.

Learn how to make irresistible lilac sugar here.

For directions to infuse some Lilac Honey, go here.

And read directions for making Blueberry Lilac Kombucha right here.

Give the Gift of Lilac Simple Syrup

If you have any fragrant, edible blooms in your yard (nope, they don’t have to be lilacs), you can easily make some simple syrup for gift giving. Watch the instructional how-to video here.

After making the syrup, I just tied a bloom to the syrup jar with a piece of twine that I also looped through the gift card. You can download and print a handy page of the gift cards I created. I downloaded it to my Resource Library, so it’ll be there anytime you have the urge to put together some drop-dead gorgeous, delicious gifts. (Not subscribed? That’s easy peasy. Just go here.)

The day I was making my lilac simple syrup happened to be my neighbor’s birthday, so I designed a little card with some recipes that call for lilac syrup. Then I realized you all may like to do the same, so I designed a page of cards. I simply printed the page on card stock paper, cut one card out, folded it in half, and wrote a birthday greeting to Paige on the front of the card. Then I just punched a little hole and threaded it on the twine.

She was out on the lake when I dropped over with her little gift, so I left it on her table on her back deck. Hopefully she liked the little surprise and it added a little sweet deliciousness to her day.

Other Simple Syrup Information

You can make simple syrups and infused sugars with numerous fragrant flowers. Go here to find 3 different recipes for Forsythia Syrup (it’s really yummy).

And experiment with other sugars when making your syrup. In fact, if you use a liquid sugar the process is much easier, as I explain here.

I love to use this tupelo honey to make simple syrups. Bonus, tupelo honey NEVER crystalizes. Isn’t that awesome? I despise hardened honey that I can’t get out of the bottom of the jar.

If I didn’t make my own maple syrup I’d use this syrup or this one.

And if I’m using “regular” sugar I avoid refined sugar all together and go for this option.

If you have any questions about plants and shrubs that will grow well in your neck of the woods, reach out to NatureHills.com.

If you want a sneak peak at the lilacs that are on their way to me, you can see them here.

Or check out all the amazing lilacs that they grow at NatureHills.

Around the Farm this Week

Selah celebrated her first birthday this week! I shared her birthday festivities over on Instagram, if you wanna catch that excitement. (And read about our calf’s birth–and my major mistake–here.)

The barn is a lot less crowded this week, and it’s a little lonely lately, now that we’ve rehomed most of the kitties. But we have kept one gorgeous, sweet girl. Watch this facebook live video  if you’d like to meet this sweet ball of smoky gray fur and get the whole scoop on why we had to rehome her momma, Reepicheep.

And join in on our facebook talk this week all about her–right here–and help us pick the perfect moniker for this cuteness!

How do you like to use your simple syrup?

Do you have a special way you love to use your floral simple syrup? Please share; maybe I can add it to my gift card page!

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera on my Resources page and even purchase your own here.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

And please follow along!

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you.

I hope my focus always encourages you, because simple joys require hard work. Let’s face it, we all need all the encouragement we can get! As soon as you subscribe (in the box at the end of this post), you’ll have immediate access to my Resource Library, which includes many useful printables–including ones about crafts and how to clean a braided wool rug–my FREE EBOOKs, and amazing recipes for things like whoopie pie cookies, maple sap switchel, and my grandmom’s perfect pie crust.

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post Making (and gifting) floral simple syrup first appeared on Souly Rested.

Because I’m in love with my heirloom lilacs here around my 200-year-old farmhouse, and because I love experimenting with anything lilac flavored, my first attempt at honey infusion was a given. I knew I wanted to try lilac-infused honey. Mind you, your choices of what to use to infuse your honey are as endless as a hard day on the farm is long. And your list of honey to choose from may be just as long, but if you don’t have a local source for your honeyj (local is always best!), I can’t recommend this honey enough. The folks over at Bee Wild Raw Honey bottle up pure joy, and their customer service is top notch, delivered with a sweet southern accent. Plus, it’s one of my favorite small businesses that I recommend.

See the end of this post for more yummy inspiration about how to infuse your honey.

If you love a good little story and fun history lesson in one, read the fun story about the lilacs around our old New England farmhouse.

Looking for amazing lilacs of your own? Look no further than the amazing selection they have over at NatureHills.com… these guys are seriously the best!

Wanna know an online source I just found and am in love with as a perfect place to unearth heirloom-kind-of treasures that are perfect for an old farmhouse? Check out Antique Farmhouse or click right here.–>

This post contains affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

Add a fresh, fragrant bloom

To make any floral honey, simply start with a fragrant bloom that’s growing fresh, and at its prime. Strip a few blooms off the stems and lay them, fresh, in a jar of honey, mix them in, and seal. Well, that’s what I did when I was learning the ropes of infusing honey. I later read that fresh blooms can lead to mold. I never had any problem with that, but possibly other blooms may, so for my infusions today I always use a mesh straining bag, like these, to soak my blooms in my honey, then I can easily strain them out. I may try drying some blooms to make future jars of infused honey that way as well.

Bonus, if I dry the flowers now, I can make floral infused honey for an amazing sweet burst of summer in the dead of February, when I’ve forgotten that summer is even a thing.

But it’s that simple. Toss some blooms in, close up your jar, and give it a few weeks or longer to sit quietly tucked away in a cabinet. The result may be the most amazing honey you’ve ever smelled, tasted, or stirred in your morning cup of tea.

If you have a lilac bush, be sure to read up on these 4 simple tips every lilac owner needs to know–tips from a professional horticulturalist who offered some great wisdom here, on SoulyRested, recently.

If you’d rather watch than read… here’s my youtube video on this topic:

Strain your blooms

When I use my lilac-infused honey, I just scoop a teaspoon right into my tea, mindless of the blooms that are in the spoonful. They quickly float to the top and are super easy to strain off with one swipe of a spoon across the top. Of course I could also use a small stranger and pour it into another cup, catching the blooms in my strainer.

On the other hand, eating lilac blooms may have many healing benefits… they’re beautiful as decoration on pastries and are definitely edible. So if you don’t mind the addition to your tea, drink up the good stuff. From what I understand, eating aromatic flowers is great for your gut. They increase blood flow in your GI tract and therefore promote healing. Raw lilac flowers may also help constipation and flatulence. (Yeah, somedays, we all need to eat some flowers folks. Just a fact.)

The blooms will continue to make the honey stronger in flavor if you let them seep in your honey, which I’m fine with. But you can also take a few minutes to fish the blooms out of your jar of honey once your flavor is just right for your taste. Or, as I explained above, I now love using these simple bags for the blooms, so I can easily take them out when it’s time.

Choose your tea

Except in black teas, which mask the floral fragrance with their strength, I find I love my lilac-infused honey in any and all herbal teas I’ve tried it in, especially the fruity varieties and chamomile. But my hands-down favorite combination is a soothing cup of lilac mint tea.

I simply steep a small tea strainer filled with mint, which I dried from the garden, and cover it with hot water for a few minutes. Then I add a teaspoon-full of my lilac honey.

I imagine it’s extra yummy to me because every last drop of flavor grew right here on our homestead. It’s amazing that something so delectable is so very simple.

Read this post if you’d like a fool-proof, piece-of-cake easy way to dry your herbs or flowers. You just need a paper bag and a little bit of patience.

And check out this amazing family-run bee company–Bee Wild Raw Honey–and the most delicious honey in the world (in my humble opinion)… their tupelo honey.

If you love lilac-everything the way that I do, you’ll enjoy these other posts too:

How to Make Lilac-Infused Kombucha

How to Make Lilac Pancake Syrup in 9 Simple Steps

How to Make Lilac Simple Syrup

How to Make Lilac Sugar

What I Learned About My Old Farmhouse Lilacs

A list of the items I couldn’t live without in my farmhouse kitchen.

Think bigger

While I tried my experiment with a small jar of honey, next time I’m moving up to much bigger! This lilac-infused honey would be wonderful to bake with! (For that, I will definitely just leave the flowers in the honey.) And I can’t imagine how happy my mouth would be if I indulged in this floral sweet goodness lavished on toast or biscuits!

Try other combinations

Of course your options of what you can use to infuse your honey are almost as limitless as the amount of projects one finds around an old homestead.

Try any of these:

— dried herbs

— dried spices

— dried flowers.

— loose dried teas

Clover honey tends to be a nice mild choice, and heaven knows we all have some of that nearby, so that’s a great one to start with. Even better, try a lively combo of a few herbs, spices, or flowers and make your own unique infused honey blend.

Whatever infusion you pursue, please let me know what you make and how it turns out! I’d love to continually add information to this post and, of course, new combinations of yummy infused honey to my pantry.

Eat honey, for it is good, Yes, the honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Proverbs 24:13

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera on my Resources page and even purchase your own here.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

And please follow along!

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you.

I hope my focus always encourages you, because simple joys require hard work. Let’s face it, we all need all the encouragement we can get! As soon as you subscribe (in the box at the end of this post), you’ll have immediate access to my Resource Library, which includes many useful printables–including ones about crafts and how to clean a braided wool rug–my FREE EBOOKs, and amazing recipes for things like whoopie pie cookies, maple sap switchel, and my grandmom’s perfect pie crust.

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post Who knew flowers in my honey could be this delicious? first appeared on Souly Rested.

Okay, so that’s a little heavy handed. But I can promise that the few minutes of your day that you sit back with a glass of this in hand you will be smiling.

If you make it yourself, instead of paying a hefty price tag at the store, your wallet will be happy.

And, score, your gut health will improve. Win-win-win.

You’ve already seen little glimpses of my newest total obsession if you’ve been following on facebook or instagram. And I gotta tell you, I can’t believe how easy it is to make.

The Michelle of just 12 weeks ago would have told you you were crazy if you thought this lady would ever make kombucha. Would ever add one more thing to her plate right now. Would ever actually be successful at any new thing she added to her plate right now.

In fact, that Michelle of 12 weeks ago would have immediately shut down the conversation if you even mentioned the word “fermenting” to her. Fermenting is for cabbage, and leads to fowl sauerkraut (sorry if you’re a fan of the stuff… I just never could bring myself to like it).

But boy was I wrong. Well, about the kombucha. Not about the sauerkraut. (Again, no offense meant to those of you who support fermented cabbage. I’ll just never join your club.)

— DISCLOSURE: This post contains a few affiliate links. —

Not a cookie-cutter drink.

So, it dawned on me last week–with Independence Day smack in the middle of the week–that fermenting your own drinks is an independent, democratic kind of thing. No one else’s kombucha is going to taste exactly like mine, and I love that. 

I mean seriously who wants a cookie-cutter drink when you can have new excitement every time you open a bottle? So let freedom ring, celebrate independence, and brew up some kombucha!

It’s so good for your gut.

After I happened upon enough articles about gut health, and eavesdropped on enough conversations about home-brewed kombucha, and bought enough of the yummy goodness at the store (which equaled just 2 bottles; this stuff is crazy expensive!), I asked a kombucha-creating friend where I sign up. And I’m only half joking. There is an underground Kombucha Klub around the globe that is devoted to this liquid goodness. Kombucha Superfans share tips, invite each other over to show off their kombucha headquarters that take up an entire corners of their kitchens, and cut up magical SCOBYs to give a piece to newbies, like me 12 weeks ago.

And that’s exactly what my neighbor Angela did for me… she willingly split her SCOBY to see it live on and prosper in my kitchen, improving my family’s health one delicious drink at a time. (Don’t know what a SCOBY is? Yeah, neither did Michelle of 12 weeks ago. Don’t worry, I’ll explain more in a future post.)

If you know you want to start brewing this amazingness for yourself, GO HERE for your source for the healthiest organic SCOBY you’ll find anywhere.

As for the gut health, it’s complicated to explain. Who am I kidding? I don’t even understand the intricacies of it. But I can tell you that the SCOBY is good bacteria. When you let it sit and grow in your kombucha, taking in more good bacteria from the air around it (that’s why you don’t put a lid on your brewing but rubber band a piece of breathable fabric on top), your drink becomes kinda miraculous, filled with really good stuff your gut desperately needs.

Kombucha goals.

My next kombucha goal (sounds like it should be a hashtag, no? #kombuchagoals)? I’m gonna start my own SCOBY. From scratch. Yeah, I may totally fail, but I want to see if I can make maple kombucha. Since this SCOBY has been feeding on refined sugar since its infancy, I’ve read that changing it’s food source may kill it, so I’ll try to start my own, originating it on maple syrup… we’ll see. I very well may totally, completely fail. Follow along here, and on facebook, instagram,or pinterest. I gab, post, and pin about kombucha pretty often these days.

But for the past 12 weeks, I’ve been experimenting with all kinds of flavors and trying different things to see if I could get more carbonation in my kombucha. (Still learning in this area, so that will have to be a future post.)

UPDATE: Not only have I figured out how to build up amazing carbonation, I’ve learned how to use all kinds of different teas for first and second ferment, developed some amazing recipes for kombucha, and learned the differences–and advantages–of continuous brew kombucha, over batch brew… I am totally in love with (and hooked on) kombucha. It’s changed my life.

I put all of this knowledge, and so much more, in my just-released latest course: Simple DIY Kombucha. 

Please if nothing else hop over here and download my totally free printable that you will refer to every single time you make kombucha–totally no strings attached and no need to give me your email. Download that helpful printable from this page, right here.

If you want to brew your kombucha with amazing organic blends that are made specifically for kombucha,  I can not recommend the teas over at Farmhouse Teas highly enough. Just hop over right here and glance at this amazingness!

I haven’t met a flavor I didn’t like.

While I have yet to meet a bottle of this stuff that I didn’t like, I have to say I have a hands-down favorite. No matter how it turns out… no matter if it I open it too early, too eagerly, and it has zero carbonation… no matter if I put too little blueberries or too much lilac syrup… seriously, blueberry lilac kombucha is my hands-down favorite drink right now.

Here are the recipes for 5 flavors that are on the top of my list right now (in case you didn’t notice, yes I am a blueberry fanatic).

You’ll need the first round of fermented kombucha, which requires a SCOBY and 1- or 2-gallon glass jars to ferment in, and 32 oz jars with seals like these.  Choose a flavor below, add the ingredients to a jar, then fill with your first round of fermented unflavored kombucha (leaving a little headroom on each bottle).

Hop over to this article I wrote on The Prairie Homestead site all about how to make a first ferment.

If you wanna know about starting a SCOBY on your own, I write about that here. Then, if you’d like to know exactly what items I wouldn’t want to be without every week when I’m making a new batch of delicious kombucha, you definitely want to glance at this list of my favorite things.

But here are five of my favorite flavors.

For the first one–my absolute favorite kombucha flavor I’ve ever tasted–you’ll wanna read this post about how to make lilac syrup. But don’t worry, you can use almost any fragrant blooming flowers in your yard right now (not just lilacs) to make a delicious floral simple syrup to flavor your kombucha (or your tea… or your lemonade…).

And all of these recipes are for a 1/2-gallon second ferment of kombucha.

1. blueberry lilac

1/4 cup lilac syrup (I show you how to make your own lilac syrup right here) and 1/4 cup frozen blueberries. If it’s lilac season, I like to toss in some fresh blooms too.

2. lemon lavender

2 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 teaspoon dried lavender (This is the best priced organic lavender I’ve found anywhere.)

3. blueberry ginger

1/4 cup frozen blueberries and roughly 1 tablespoon finely diced fresh ginger

4. blueberry pineapple

1/4 cup frozen blueberries and about 1/4 cup of scrap pieces of fresh pineapple and even the pineapple core which would typically just get thrown way, or composted.

5. pineapple ginger

scrap pieces of the pineapple and pineapple core and chopped pieces of ginger, maybe 1/8 cup of each?

What’s your favorite kombucha flavor? Please share in the comments! I’m always looking for new brewing inspiration.

And speaking of inspiration… oh my goodness, you need to check out these amazing kombucha teas right here… there is sooooo much to love!

“Meet” my latest kombucha in this recent fb live… you’ll never guess what this SCOBY is made from! Not following SoulyRested on facebook? Hop over and follow along; I’d love to see ya’ there!

Other Articles about DIY Kombucha You’ll Love:

Seven Favorite Kombucha Recipes

How to Make Kombucha with Maple Syrup

How to Improve Your Gut Health, with DIY Kombucha

DIY Kombucha… What Does it Really Cost to Make it Yourself?

“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.”  Mathew 6:31-31 (The Message Bible)

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post Lilac Blueberry Kombucha–you should totally make this first appeared on Souly Rested.

1. ways to use lilac syrup and
2. who would like a gift of lilac syrup

I thought I’d share in this post all the info you need to do all of the above or just make a jar of this deliciousness to enjoy in your morning cup of tea tomorrow.

I welcomed y’all into my little farmhouse kitchen and made some lilac syrup with you this week, on facebook.

I’ve always loved lilacs. Right after I married, I purchased a bare root Yankee Doodle lilac through the mail and planted it, just a little twig, in our side yard. Then we moved 7 years later, and I never got to enjoy those amazing deep purple blossoms because it takes that long for blooms to grow when you’re planting a little brach of a tree.

If you want to know more about planting your own lilacs–the right way–you’ll love this article I wrote after talking to an edible landscaping specialist with Nature Hills, with over 40 years of extensive experience–all about lilac tips and care. 

Interesting sidenote, I had a LAVENDER farmer on the podcast and learned that the process of making lavender sugars and syrups is very similar to lilac. Listen in to that fascinating episode here or join us on youtube:

And order your copy here: The Lavender Companion

What does lilac taste like?

Back when I planted my first lilac, I had no idea that they were an edible herb. I only wanted to grow them for the pretty spring bouquets.

But it turns out you can make amazingly delicious things with lilac. I wouldn’t advice eating the blooms themselves, but they make some delicious pantry staples if you infuse the blooms in water, honey, syrup, sugar, and even salt.

What is lilac used for?

Lilac is a medicinal herb that can help lower fever, improve digestion, and so much more that has been documented since the middle ages.

What part of lilac is edible?

Only the bloom of lilacs are edible. The rest of the shrub–leaves, bark, roots, etc. aren’t edible.

If you’d like a fun little history lesson about old farmhouses and old English lilacs, you gotta read this post.

And check out Nature Hills for the best mature lilacs you’ll find anywhere–you can order them online and be enjoying your own amazing purple clusters NEXT SPRING!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

How to make lilac syrup

You’ll be shocked at how easy this is.

I shared the full recipe here: Making Lilac Syrup.

If you want to can your syrup, to keep all year, and want to know great ways to use your syrup, keep reading.

How to water bath can lilac syrup

After you make your lilac syrup (full directions here for making delicious lilac syrup) you may want to can it.

If you’re just making some to enjoy over the next month or two and have room in the fridge for it, no canning necessary. But if you’d like to gift this deliciousness to a friend, or if you’d like to put it away until January and indulge in this taste of summer in the midst of a chilly winter’s afternoon then you want to water bath can it.

Water bath canning is super easy. Just fill your canning pan so there’ll be at least one inch of water above your jars. Once you have the water to a rolling boil (honestly this is the part of lilac syrup that requires the most patience, just waiting for water to boil), place your jars in.

You only need to leave your jars of syrup in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. That’s it. Easy, right? I don’t know why the thought of canning always intimidates me just a little. And I always assume I need to leave a whole afternoon open for the process, which is silly. This batch of syrup took less than an hour from beginning to end, and the bulk of that time was, like I said, spent waiting for a pot to boil. (And I didn’t even watch it, cause I totally know what they say about a watched pot.)

Carefully take your jars out and line them up on your counter, in a draft-free area. I like to cover mine with towels, to keep them nice and warm until they seal. That usually only takes a few hours at most, but I usually leave mine sitting on the counter covered in towels over night.

Having the jars lined up on the counter always reminds me of Mom. She often had towel-covered jars lining a corner of her counters during the harvest season of Dad’s amazing gardens.

And Dad would have LOVED Nature Hills. He would have never believed the variety and quality of flowers, plants, trees, and yes, lilacs you can order at Nature Hills, the world’s largest online nursery.

I’ve written a good bit about mom and dad, not only cause they are a part of who I am and I miss them, but also because they inspired my desire toward this homesteading life long before I even realized it.

If you like lilac syrup you’ll love maple syrup. I’ve written more posts than I care to count about our backyard maple syrup production.

If you want to try your hand at baking with maple syrup, I got ya covered.

What is lilac syrup good for?

Use lilac syrup in place of plain ole sugar in things like:

• lilac lemonade
• lilac-infused cocktails
• cake recipes that call for a sugar syrup
• iced tea
• hot tea
• lilac kombucha (my FAVORITE!)
• lilac sparkling water

Or enjoy your lilac syrup one of these fun ways:

Pour it as a lite syrup over vanilla ice cream; an amazingly special summer night treat.

Brush a cake with lilac syrup before icing it; your cake will not only be extra delicious, but extra moist.

Sweeten your next fruit salad with drizzles of lilac syrup. You’ll not only add a taste to relish on your fruit, but you’ll keep it pretty and bright as well, instead of letting the apples, pears, and bananas turn brown before they’re all eaten.

Who would like a gift of lilac syrup?

I plan on gifting a few jars to my mother-in-law and grandmom when I see them next. They are both avid tea drinkers and deserve a special fancy lilac kick to their tea every once in a while.

But there are so many folks in your life who would love a jar of this beautiful purple sweetness…

• a new neighbor,
• a mail carrier,
• a hostess,
• a grown daughter moving into her first apartment,
• a teen daughter’s friend who invites her over,
• any friend/any time.

Truly, there’s no limit to how many people I know who would love a jar of this delicacy. They don’t have to know it was so, so easy to make and, well, it literally grew on trees.

So tomorrow I’m going to attach some cute little gift tags to some jars of lilac syrup and be ready to share this deliciousness. Go here to download gift tags with 3 recipes for using lilac syrup in delicious drinks.

And, finally, how to enjoy a chilly New England spring evening…

Bill started a fire in our brick oven while I printed gift tags for my lilac syrup.

Even though spring has definitely arrived here on our New England homestead, today was a chilly overcast day. So my thoughts turn from delicious blooms of spring to deeply warm fire-baked pizza.

All four daughters are home and congregated around our kitchen counter, which is covered in flour, dough, bacon, and oh-so-much cheese.

And I am a happy girl.

So, yeah, our old farmhouse has a wonderful old Rumford fireplace and bee hive oven, but it is also full of money-pit problems, so don’t let me romanticize it too much. If you wanna know some of  the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse? I wrote about those here.

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse. I’m already addicted.

More about lilacs, lilac syrup & more:

• My recipe for making Lilac Syrup
• My recipe for making Lilac SUGAR
• Lilac Shortbread
• Growing lilacs (Tips from a Pro)
• Making lilac-infused honey
• Lilac blueberry kombucha
• The easiest way to make lots of floral syrups

“Consider the lilies [and lilacs], how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. “But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? “ Luke 12: 27-28

The post Making and using Lilac Syrup in our farmhouse kitchen first appeared on Souly Rested.

Lilacs: Their perfume is sweetness personified. And their purple blooms tumbling over each other on my window ledge? They’re beauty personified.

Lilacs even offer a wonderful history lesson to old-home owners. But my daughter who inspired my whole homesteading lifestyle (the one who was fascinated with the homestead mentality long before we moved to 14 rural NH acres) has taught me to assume everything has multiple uses, and I started wondering if savory smelling lilacs could be turned into a sweet dessert. So we delved into an ambrosial experiment. And I have to tell you making syrup with lilacs is so much easier than our extravagant maple syrup production.

To start, we clipped a vase-worth of blooms. Turned out this was about twice as much as we needed, so the rest are now gracing my mantle.

As we gathered, we found numerous others were enjoying the lilac delicacies as well.

We separated the purple blossoms from their green sepals and yellow pistils.

They slid off effortlessly; in only a few minutes we had a cup full.

We boiled water, added sugar and the blooms, and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

The syrup is delicious in our tea, and we plan on trying it on ice cream for tonight’s dessert and on pancakes one morning soon. I do wish the syrup was a thicker consistency, but I’m pleased with the subtly sweet taste.

I also learned that adding a small handful of blueberries will turn your syrup a beautiful deep purple color. Without the berries, our syrup was a grayish-purple hue.

This post contains affiliate links.

Would you like to plant some lilacs of your own? Or maybe you have one but would like more variety? (I recently planted Bloomerang lilacs that bloom multiple times throughout the summer!) If you click that image above, it’ll show you the huge variety of lilacs that you can order from my favorite nursery, NatureHills. I am impressed with everything I’ve ordered from them.

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Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera and even purchase your own here.

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My subscriber library includes my favorite go-to recipe ever–Grandma’s Cheesy Egg Souffle–along with an easy-to-print copy of my Lilac Syrup recipe. Now that’d be a seriously good brunch: Grandma’s souffle and pancakes with lilac syrup!

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The post Lilac Syrup first appeared on Souly Rested.