Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle
Making syrup from trees in your own backyard is extremely rewarding–not to mention so sweetly delicious! But I’m not just talking about making maple syrup. While I do love DIY maple syrup, I’m actually writing about something that may surprise you today… Lilac Syrup. (Of course you can also read all about our backyard production of maple syrup in my DIY Maple Syrup Series on that sweet topic.)
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.
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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.
If you’d like to water bath can your syrup and keep it all year long, I give you all the details you’ll need to know, and offer a video tutorial in this post. (Trust me, it’s super easy. If I can do this you can too.)
I was fascinated to learn that our lilac trees may very well have been here on our homestead long ago. This post tells you more about that and the history of the lilac and old farmhouses.
Or maybe you’d like to know more about the iris, the dandelion, or–my favorite potted plant–succulents.
If you’d like to know more about the maple syrup we make here on our homestead, I’ve written extensively about that. This post is a great one to start with.
Our Recipe for Lilac Syrup
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup lilac blooms
- Heat water and sugar until dissolved.
- Add lilac flowers and simmer for 10 minutes.
- If desired, add a few blueberries for color.
- Filter the syrup into a glass jar–to remove the flowers.
- Let it cool, then keep refrigerated.
NOTE: I like to boil 10 cups of water at a time, dissolve 10 cups of sugar, and simmer 10 cups of blooms with about 10-15 blueberries to make one gallon of syrup. I’ll then can that into 8 pints of syrup to enjoy throughout the year ahead.
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Canning and using your lilac syrup,
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“Consider the lilies [and lilacs], how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in
Savoring my lilac-sweetened tea, I am in awe that God would package such amazing splendor, scent, and sweetness in these simple flowers. Truly, through such a simple flower he shows us his splendor.
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy…
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.”Isaiah 35:2
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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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