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How to make Lilac Sugar

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Learn how to make lilac sugar at home! The best way to preserve edible flowers for the entire year and flower sugar makes for such a great gift!  Jump to Recipe 

a jar of homemade lilac sugar next to freshly picked lilac flowers

Lilac – the essential smell of late spring with the promise of summer! These little purple flowers grow almost everywhere but did you know that you can cook and bake with them? And what’s even better- you can preserve their wonderful smell by infusing it into sugar. Spring in a jar, you guys! 

Their subtle fragrance is absorbed wonderfully into the white sugar crystals and your flower petal sugar will add a heavenly perfume to anything you eat or drink it with.

Lilac infused sugar can be used in so many ways! Home bakers will fall in love with flower sugar! This pretty homemade lilac sugar will give all your summery baked goods such as shortbread, sheet cakes, and pound cakes a subtle floral flavor.  At the bottom, I have listed my favorite ways of using this sugar. 

Ingredients needed: 

  • Lilac 
  • White Sugar 

ingredients needed for making lilac sugar on a wooden board

How to make Lilac Sugar: 

Making lilac petal sugar at home is indeed very easy and simple. It all starts with picking perfect lilac blooms, of course, preferably ones from your garden at the height of the season, lush and full.

You can make as much or as little sugar as you would like. It is important to NOT WASH the petals. Simply give your lilacs a good shake to be sure there aren’t any small bugs clinging on to any of the blossoms, then carefully remove individual blossoms from the stems. This is the hard part – plucking the individual flowers off the stem. Just give them a slight tug, the bloom slides right off, detaching from the little green sepal at its base.

Then we simply layer the lilac petals with white sugar in a mason jar. How much petals and sugar you need will depend on how big your mason jar is.  Then shake and place the closed jar in a dark dry place.  Remember to gently shake the jar every day for a week to mix the sugar and prevent big lumps.

lilac petals being mixed with white sugar for making flower sugar

After the flower sugar is dry (takes a week ) sift the petal sugar using a mesh strainer, to separate the dried lilac petals from the flavored sugar. Or leave them in, which is what I do.

lilac flower petals in a small white dish ready to be turned to lilac sugar

You can also dry the lilac blossoms, then grind them together with the sugar using mortar and pestle. 

a small silver spoon filled with lilac petal sugar

Ways to use lilac sugar

You can use your homemade petal sugar anywhere you’d use plain sugar for adding a summery light lilac flavor.  For any dessert or baking recipe, simply replace any given amount of granulated sugar with lilac infused sugar at a 1:1 ratio. So good in cookies and cakes like my lemon sheet cake.  

Don’t forget to add this flower sugar to my vegan pancakes, my buttermilk pancakes, or use it to add a floral note to my lemon pudding. 

It also makes an awesome decoration. Sprinkle along with bits of the sugared and dehydrated lilac blossoms on top of cookies, instead of brown sugar in my blueberry muffins  recipe or use it to top my  lemon poppyseed muffins, or any bundt cake.

Use a little of it to sweeten tea or infuse your favorite spring or summer cocktail with that lovely floral flavor! For making lilac infused cocktails, dissolve the sugar in hot water turning it into a simple syrup.

Make lilac white hot chocolate by using this flower petal sugar instead of plain white sugar. Trust me, this is SO GOOD all year round.

a jar of lilac petal sugar next to a a glass of homemade lilac lemonade

Tips: 

  • The stems and leaves of lilacs tend to be tough and bitter. Use only the blossoms to make flower petal sugar.
  • I recommend you shake the jar of homemade lilac petal sugar every day for 5 days or up to a week. That way you prevent your jar of sugar to become one solid mass as the sugar pulls the moisture from the lilac blossoms.
  • After the lilac blossoms dry (which usually takes a week), they are preserved and candied. At this point, you could strain those pretty flowers from the sugar by pressing it all through a fine-mesh sieve. However, I like to leave the blossoms in the sugar for a fun bit of color!
  • Store the sugar in a cool dark spot. 

Did you make and love this recipe? Give it your review below! And make sure to share your creations by tagging me on Instagram!

selbstgemachter Fliederzucker in einem Marmeladenglas neben Fliederblüten Dolden
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How to make Lilac Sugar

Learn how to make lilac sugar at home! The best way to preserve these gorgeous edible flowers for the entire year and blossom sugar makes for such a great gift!
Course condiment, Dessert, diy
Cuisine European
Keyword lilac recipes, lilac sugar recipe, preserving edible flowers
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 2 minutes
Total Time 12 minutes
Servings 1 jar
Calories 600 kcal

Ingredients

  • 3/4 Cup White Granulated Sugar
  • 1/4 Cup Lilac Blossoms - about 2 big flowers - pick them in your garden or somewhere far away from roads and traffic
  • 1 small glass jar

Instructions

  1. Gather the lilac. Choose vibrant lilac blooms that have just opened and that aren't yet turning brown.DO NOT WASH THE FLOWERS.

  2. Remove single flowers from the branch and pluck them one by one into a small bowl.

  3. Place a couple of tablespoons of sugar in the bottom of a jar.

  4. Layer about a heaping tablespoon of lilac blossoms on top of the sugar.

  5. Repeat the layers, ending with sugar as the top layer.

  6. Seal! Put a lid on the jar and shake the contents. Repeat the shake once more that same day and store the sugar for 24 hours in a dark cool place.

    The sugar should already be nicely infused with beautiful flavor after 24 hours. UPDATE: I used to let the sugar infuse for several days up to a week, shaking the jar once a day. It works 3 times out of four. However, some batches got a weird taste. I did some more testing, and found that keeping the flowers in the sugar for longer than 3-4 days sometimes gives the sugar an off taste from the flowers losing their vigor. So now,I remove the flowers after 24 hours of infusing And store the sugar.

    You can gently shake it or stir through the sugar with a spoon to break up the clumps.

    It's super important to store the sugar in a dark cool place.

Recipe Notes

  • The stems and leaves of lilacs tend to be tough and bitter. Use only the blossoms to make lilac sugar.
  • I recommend you shake the jar of homemade lilac sugar at least once a day every day for 5 days or up to a week. That way you prevent your jar of sugar to become one solid mass as the sugar pulls the moisture from the lilac blossoms.
  • After the lilac blossoms dry (which usually takes a week), they are preserved and candied. At this point, you could strain those pretty flowers from the sugar by pressing it all through a fine-mesh sieve. However, I like to leave the blossoms in the sugar for a fun bit of color!
  • Store the sugar in a cool dark spot. 
  • The blossoms do often turn brownish after a while, they just give up their color but it’s not bad per se.
  • Choose vibrant lilac blooms that have just opened and that aren't yet turning brown. A few unopened buds are no problem. Do this in early spring! You will get the best flavor from sprigs that have just bloomed.

Lilac Lemonade: 

  • Lemons (5) Enough to make 3/4 cups of juice plus enough for garnish and slices
  • 3/4 cups of lilac sugar (recipe above)
  • 4 1/2 cups of water
  • Ice Cubes ( I like freezing some lilac flowers in the ice cubes)
  •  1 bulb fresh lilac sprig ( blossoms)

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Cut your lemons in half and juice them with a citrus juicer. 
  2. Remove the seeds and pulp from your juice with a fine-mesh sieve. Refrigerate.
  3. Soak your fresh Lilac sprigs in cold water for a minimum of 2 hours to overnight.
  4. Add 1/2 cup of water to the lilac sugar and heat to dissolve until the sugar is well incorporated. Remove from the heat and refrigerate.
  5. Slice a lemon into medallions and add it to your pitcher.
  6. Add your lilac, lemon juice, lilac "syrup", and 3 1/2 cups of water and stir. 

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One Comment

  1. 5 stars
    This sugar is so delicious – love it in lemon tea but I also tried it on your pancakes and what can I say – AMAZING!

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