Enjoy making your own homemade wild violet syrup to be used in cocktails or a nice topping for desserts.
I'm sure I've written about the gift shop I used to run with my sister called Wild Violets and Thyme. The reason we named it that had to do with our late Mother's love for wild violets. We used to pick them in the field next to our house and bring her little bouquets.
Now, my husband hates them as they grow in the grass here pretty readily and are hard to get rid of. But every spring I see them and am reminded of my mother and that makes me smile.
Last year I made lilac jelly and this year I thought I'd try something similar and gather some of these beautiful wild violets and make a syrup.
Safety Note: As with any plant material that you forage to use in cooking, make sure that they are safe and have not been sprayed with chemicals.
I didn't want to pick violets from our yard as it does get fertilized but I have some growing in my garden areas that are safe.
Making Violet Syrup
I could only gather about 1 cup of flowers. After you wash them and pour boiling water over top you will be amazed at the resulting color. The color will depend somewhat on the violets growing in the yard, your water, and the quantity. However, there's a good chance that it will be blue like the picture above.
To make it more lavender just add a drop or two of fresh lemon juice. Apparently it's a PH thing. Using distilled water is supposed to help but I love lemon so a drop or two was not a problem.
If you let the violets steep in the water overnight it will continue to pull the color from the flower petals.
You can leave it a pretty blue color. It would make an interesting looking cocktail. And, to be honest the flavor is not strong, just sweet. So this is more of a color wonder and a fun nature craft.
In the end, I had to make mine lavender because it seems a little truer to the beautiful flower.
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Homemade Wild Violet Syrup
Enjoy making your own homemade wild violet syrup to be used in cocktails or a pretty topping for desserts.
Ingredients
- 1 cup wild violet flowers washed
- 1 cup of sugar
- a squeeze of fresh lemon
Instructions
- Pick and wash wild violet flowers.
- Place just the flowers, no stems or leaves in a mason jar
- Cover with about a cup of boiling water.
- Let sit overnight.
- Strain into another jar using a coffee filter
- Add a couple of drops of fresh lemon juice to change color from blue to lavender
- Pour into a saucepan and add sugar (equal amount of the strained liquid)
- Heat on med-low heat and stir until sugar has dissolved about 5 minutes.
- Let cool and pour into a sterilized bottle.
- Keep in the refrigerator for 1 month.
Notes
The darker the violets the darker your color should be. You can use this in cocktails to replace any simple syrup. Also good in whipped cream or on pancakes.
Carole West
Your shop sounds like a place I would have visited often. Like the store on Hallmarks show, The Good Witch... Always thought it would be fun to have my own flower shop. With my spirit of never staying in one place for very long, unfortunately I knew that would never be possible. This project is awesome, seems relatively easy and would be neat to teach and share as gifts. Love!
Patti Estep
Thanks Carole. I used to dream of having a flower shop too. The gift shop was great while it lasted but life changed we moved far away. My sister got married and sold the building to, believe it or not, a florist.