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 (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.
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.
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.
Savoring my lilac-sweetened tea, I am in awe that God would package such amazing splendor, scent, and sweetness in these simple flowers. And 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
souly rested 