Make your own strawberry syrup

As an avid soft drink drinker, I’ve been trying to minimalise my consumption of commercial soft drinks. Whenever I feel like having a fizzy drink, the substitution nowadays is sparkling water with juice concentrate.

What I love about my own concoction is I can adjust the level of sweetness to taste. Most of the time, I just made it with a tinge of sweetness just to satisfy my sugar crave at the same time keeping my sugar intake as low as possible.

Whether this is a better option or not, I suppose it depends on the type of  juice concentrate you get.

I was intrigued with the idea of homemade fruit syrup, namely this strawberry syrup recipe found on the free Woolworths recipe magazine. As now would be the perfect time to experiment with strawberries as they are abundant and very affordable, I was really excited to try this easy recipe as soon as I got my hands on these super juicy and fragrant strawberries.

(Be prepared to see a lot of RED on this post! ;))

{Found an unusually big strawberry when I was about to wash the strawberries. Let’s just say this one didn’t make it to the pot! :P}

Strawberry Syrup

(adapted from Woolworths Fresh magazine (free) – issue 67 September 2011)

I ended up with 2 cups of the syrup instead of 1 cup as specified in the magazine

Ingredients:-

• 1 cup water *see Emily’s note below
• 1/2 cup caster sugar (adjust according to the natural sweetness of the strawberries)
• 2 punnets (500g /18 oz) fresh strawberries, hulled & chopped
• Juice of 1/3 of a lemon (again adjust to taste)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence * see Emily’s note below

Emily’s note: -

1. If you decided to wash the strawberries like me, you should consider to reduce the water from 1 cup to say, 3/4 cup. I think this is the reason my syrup quantity yields almost double as compared to the suggested quantity in the recipe.
2. I skipped the vanilla essence as I want to keep the syrup as natural as possible. The batch of  strawberries I’ve got were so fragrant that I think vanilla essence may just artificialise the flavour, no? But then again it comes down to the batch of strawberries you get, some batches can be pretty flat in scent, so vanilla essence may well be needed in the syrup. If that’s the case, I would rather add vanilla beans instead or homemade vanilla sugar.

Methods:-

•  Remove the hull of the strawberries.

•  Wash them to remove any dirt and residue.

•  Dice the strawberries and set aside.

• Combine water and sugar in a saucepan or a small pot and bring to boil. Stir until sugar dissolves. Then boil for 5 minutes until thicken slightly (I have done it over medium flame).

•  Add strawberries and lemon juice to pan/pot, then cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until strawberries release their juice and have softened. Remove from heat.

•  Reserve 1/3 of the mixture and puree remaining strawberries until smooth.

• Stir in reserved strawberries, then store in refrigerator as syrup will deteriorate if kept in the heat. ( I stored my in a heat-proof  jug sealed tightly with a cling on top. It’s even better if you have heat-proof jug which comes with a lid.)