Floral play
May. 3rd, 2010 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidIt's spring, and violets and lilacs are in bloom. Every year I think about doing something with violets, but somehow with Passover and work and such, it doesn't happen. This year, I managed it. Well, except that I usually think of candied violets, but that involves lots and lots of individual piecework, and I'm rather lazier than that (I bake brownies, not cookies, for the same reason). And I found out that lilac blossoms are also edible.
So. I picked lilacs and violets, aiming in each case for as intense color as I could (though did include some white violets, figuring some white is better than fewer overall), and did a couple of experiments.
First, I tried lilac liqueur, soaking the flowers in vodka. Unlike fruit, these seemed done (read: turned brownish from light purple) about a day later, and since it was clear that there was no juice that could be pulled out from sugaring them, I made a simple syrup instead (breaking my usual rule of no water in liqueurs), and guessed how much to add. It's a light brown liqueur, and it's not a strong scent, so I'm not sure that this was particularly successful.
Next, I riffed off the directions for violet syrup to make a lilac syrup. This meant covering fresh blossoms with hot water, and letting it steep overnight. Once the water was infused to a nice purple color, I drained the flowers out, then boiled the lilac liquid with sugar to make a syrup, which is a dark purple. The directions included adding lemon juice, which I didn't do, because I wasn't sure how the color would change, and wanted it to stay purple.
I did similar things with the violets. I let the violet petals steep longer in vodka, and the liqueur ended up being a pale pale purple. The syrup is less dark than the lilac syrup (and still without lemon, so not red, but purple).
Net results so far: a quart of the lilac liqueur, a pint of the violet liqueur, two pints of the lilac syrup, and less than a pint of the violet syrup. I'm not sure what to use them in/with; thoughts appreciated.
Flowers for future play: dandelions, roses
So. I picked lilacs and violets, aiming in each case for as intense color as I could (though did include some white violets, figuring some white is better than fewer overall), and did a couple of experiments.
First, I tried lilac liqueur, soaking the flowers in vodka. Unlike fruit, these seemed done (read: turned brownish from light purple) about a day later, and since it was clear that there was no juice that could be pulled out from sugaring them, I made a simple syrup instead (breaking my usual rule of no water in liqueurs), and guessed how much to add. It's a light brown liqueur, and it's not a strong scent, so I'm not sure that this was particularly successful.
Next, I riffed off the directions for violet syrup to make a lilac syrup. This meant covering fresh blossoms with hot water, and letting it steep overnight. Once the water was infused to a nice purple color, I drained the flowers out, then boiled the lilac liquid with sugar to make a syrup, which is a dark purple. The directions included adding lemon juice, which I didn't do, because I wasn't sure how the color would change, and wanted it to stay purple.
I did similar things with the violets. I let the violet petals steep longer in vodka, and the liqueur ended up being a pale pale purple. The syrup is less dark than the lilac syrup (and still without lemon, so not red, but purple).
Net results so far: a quart of the lilac liqueur, a pint of the violet liqueur, two pints of the lilac syrup, and less than a pint of the violet syrup. I'm not sure what to use them in/with; thoughts appreciated.
Flowers for future play: dandelions, roses