If At First You Don’t Succeed: Lavender Lemonade

A few weeks ago (April 15th post to be exact), I tried my hand at making ‘Homemade Lavender Lemonade’.  I had to admit that it was a definite disaster.  I can honestly say that I learned a lesson or actually two.

The first lesson was that because you have it doesn’t mean you have to use it.  I don’t know what possessed me to add vanilla to the lemonade.  Maybe it was that I was on a dessert kick, there were a few beans in the cabinet, and I just had to use one for the lemonade.  I used the vanilla bean and what was supposed to be lavender lemonade turned into vanilla lemonade.

 The second lesson I learned was that when you use dry whole ingredients you will want to ensure the flavor is extracted.  With previous recipes, I grated dry ingredients and that is how the flavor was added to the dish.  I knew I couldn’t grate the dry flowers when I attempted to make the lemonade the first time.  I released the flavor from the vanilla bean but do the same for the dried lavender flowers.  This time around I cracked the dry flowers by gently pounding them two times with the smooth side of a food mallet (I forgot that I owned a mortar & pestle).  I added boiling hot water to the flowers to release their flavor.

With water, sugar, fresh lemon juice, and dried lavender flowers, I was able to create the perfect lemonade.

¼ cup Dried Lavender
1 ½ or 2 cups Cane Sugar
10 Lemons
3 cups Water

ONEBring 3 cups of Water to a boil.
TWOAdd Dried Lavender to a plastic bag or saran wrap. Pound gently one or twice with the smooth side of a food mallet.
THREEAdd Dried Lavender to a glass bowl.
FOURAdd Water to Dried Lavender. Cover bowl and let stand for at least 15 minutes.
FIVEJuice Lemons (Cut lemons in half. Remove seeds. Use a reamer, fork, manual juicer.). Add lemon juice to 2 quart pitcher.
SIXStrain lavender water to remove dried flowers.
SEVENAdd strained lavender water to 2 quart pitcher.
EIGHTAdd Cane Sugar to 2 quarter pitcher ensuring Cane Sugar is completely dissolved. If sugar isn’t completely dissolved, add about a cup of hot water to pitcher.
NINEFill the remainder of the pitcher with cold water.
TENPlace pitcher in the refrigerator to chill.