These Homemade Syrups Are Better Than What You See on TikTok

When someone (Claire) mentioned #syruptok to me, I got excited. It’s maple season now and I’ve always wanted to harvest my own maple syrup . But, unfortunately, as with most exciting ideas, everything was ruined when it turned out to be a suburban trend.

Obviously, there is a section of Americans who have enough space in their home to think, “I just have too many closets! What completely secondary function can a closet perform? I live in the city so I’ve never had these thoughts, but some people have them and come to the funny conclusion that they should have a syrup bar that they make all sorts of fantastic unicorn colored drinks that they add . into incredibly decorated containers that carry their hiding place. In fact, the manufacture of these cups is a separate trend “Tok” .

Like Crystal Light and other “diet” drinks of the 90s, syrups live on the fringes of diet culture, since most of these syrups do not contain sugar, but they are mysteriously shelf-stable, which is achieved only by adding a large number of preservatives. . Drinks are often exotic collaborations of powdered flavors and meal replacement shakes, and the idea that they are “healthy” is surprising.

Suburban mysteries aside, it can’t be cheap, so it’s time to make your own ‘rupe’. (Don’t tell me to “stop trying to make rup” happen. It’s happening.)

How syrups are born

Syrups are made from a flavor base and sweetener in a ratio of approximately 3:1, respectively. A 1:1 ratio will give you jam if you add pectin, but to make syrup, all you have to do is make whatever base you like and sweeten it to your liking, so you can add as much as you want. like a 1:1 ratio. The end result won’t be shelf stable and you’ll need to store it in the fridge, but unless you’re going to use a full bar of syrup, they won’t take up too much space. Sugar is a preservative, but sugar alone will not make the syrup shelf-stable; they’re just preservatives, baby.

Unlike jam, you want a clarified flavor base, meaning you want it to be just liquid, with no fruit pieces or other particles. For example, if you want tea syrup, you need to make strong tea and then strain it so that there are no tea leaves left in it. The best way to do this is to line the sieve with cheesecloth. If you want to make blueberry syrup (and I highly recommend you do), you must extract the blueberry juice with a steam juicer, or run it through an electric juicer, or boil it and then strain it several times. once.

In some cases, if you have a solid flavor base like chocolate, caramel, marshmallow, or gingerbread, you will need to turn that solid into a liquid or soluble powder in order to use it. For caramel syrup, this can be as simple as melting hard candies with water or milk. Chocolate is already available in the form of powder (cocoa), but in order to dissolve it, you must first make a paste. (However, it’s not difficult. We can show you how to do it here .)

You can also use flavors that suggest the end result rather than using the “real thing”, similar to how we season pumpkin spices instead of pumpkin puree to suggest pumpkin pie. A solid plan C is to look for the flavor imitation that is most likely to be found in syrups bought at your store. This is how you get marshmallows.

Once you have the flavor base, you need to concentrate it if you haven’t already. A good starting point would be to boil tea, juice, coffee, or any other flavor.

Choose a sweetener

All sweeteners have different tastes, which is what makes the world delicious. Brown sugar tastes different than white sugar or maple syrup, honey, molasses or corn syrup, which is a wonderful ingredient that has been unfairly maligned for years.

You can also choose from a variety of sugar free syrups such as Stevia, Splenda, Truvia, etc. I have never enjoyed any of these so I threw them out of my house but for now you understand they don’t thicken your rupee, just sweeten it, you can use them.

There is another class of sweeteners you should consider, these are just newer and more likely to be found at your local grocery store. Brown rice syrup, coconut sugar, monk fruit (liquid version), allulose, dates, or agave syrup are worth exploring because some of them can actually lower blood glucose and insulin levels .

Boil to syrup

Bring the flavor base to a boil on the stovetop and add the sweetener, then stir while simmering until the sweetener has dissolved. Most of the sweeteners we talked about above will help thicken your syrup, but to be honest, it’s not necessary. Viscosity is not what makes syrup syrup; it’s sweetness. But if density is important to you, then continue to simmer, stirring so that it does not burn, until you achieve the desired result.

If you can’t achieve this with a sweetener, there are binders that can help thicken your syrup, such as cornstarch or gelatin. To use cornstarch, you are going to create a slurry. This is usually made with water and cornstarch, but use an aromatic base for this purpose (it’s mostly water anyway). Mix them in a 1:1 ratio, using about a tablespoon of each. Blend them together until no lumps remain, then add half to the simmering syrup on the stovetop, stir, simmer for five minutes and see if the consistency suits you. If it’s still not thick enough, you can keep adding the slurry to achieve the desired results.

If you want to try gelatin, remove the syrup from the stove and add one tablespoon of powdered gelatin directly to each quart of liquid and stir. Now put it back on the stove and let it brew for five minutes. The gelatin needs to cool to really see the effect, so keep a plate in the freezer, pour a teaspoon of the syrup on it, and tilt the plate to see how thick it has become. You can always put it back on the stove and add more.

Start your journey with coffee or lime

First, try coffee syrup. Make one pint of coffee as strong as you like. It can be espresso only, you can just start with a cold drink of your choice, or even a light decaffeinated coffee. Add ⅔ cup brown sugar. Mix them together in a saucepan on the stove over medium heat until it boils, then simmer for five minutes. Try it and see how you like it. Remember that you can add up to two cups of sugar, so add more if you like, simmer for five minutes after each addition of sugar. Now make a slurry of one tablespoon of cornstarch and one tablespoon of water or coffee in a small bowl. Stir until there are no lumps and add to the coffee syrup. Stir, let simmer for five minutes. Let cool, pour into a bottle and refrigerate.

If you want to try fruit syrup, take two pounds of limes and a juicer. Squeeze the juice from the lime and strain the juice to get rid of the pulp. The remaining juice should be light green and cloudy, but no pulp at all. Weigh the juice and record the weight. Now add the juice to the pot and bring to a boil. Add as much sugar as lime juice by weight and stir in the sugar to make a simple lime syrup. Let the syrup cool, pour it into a bottle and refrigerate.

Bottle that ‘rupe

To save syrups, you can use a funnel and bottle them to store in the refrigerator. Hot Tip: Get bottles short enough to fit between shelves. Of course you can find them online , but for many years I have been very fond of IKEA bottles as they are affordable, beautiful and very durable.

The syrups will stay good for quite some time. Just keep an eye on them and throw them away if you notice mold. If you see bubbles, that means your syrup is fermenting, which won’t hurt you, but it will change the flavor (and eventually the strength).

Armed with new syrups, you can start a new life as a Pinteresting soccer mom sipping cherry limeade from a 72-ounce jeweled Stanley glass. Damn, cherry limeade sounds delicious . I have to go.