Brielle's Avalon

So many lemons this year! I’ve used lemons fresh off the tree for months, then after I had to harvest 2 weeks ago (late this year) made lemon curd, lemon meringue pie, lemon cookies (and cloud-light meringues from the leftover whites), lemon poppyseed cakes and now lemonade. I haven’t made lemonade in years and never used the zest but now that I have a zester I can really go to town on the flavour. It’s fairly easy, if messy.

You’ll need

8-10 lemons

1 1/2c sugar plus 1 1/2c water

7c ice water

Optional: Berries of your choice for embellishment

Zest and juice the lemons. You might want to wear goggles or at least keep your glasses on. Squirts are real! I had to wash my face afterwards and was very glad for my glasses! Don’t have a zester? Quick! Run out and get one! I don’t use it often but when I need it it’s the best thing for the job!

Put the sugar in a pan and add 1 1/2c water and lemon zest. I started to make the simple syrup first but changed my mind as soon as I put the sugar in the pan. If you decide to use the big burner for tonight’s chili and the small burner for the simple syrup and than zest the lemons before adding the water to make the syrup DO turn the burner off or you’ll end up making caramel, too.

Bring the sugar-water to a boil while stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once it starts to boil take it off the heat and let it cool a bit while you juice the lemons.

I realized that 7 c of water plus 1 1/2 to 2c juice and 1/2c or so of simple syrup was too much for the 2-quart pitcher and mixed it in a gallon jug. Maybe next time I’ll just double the recipe and use the pitcher for overflow.

Put 7c ice-water in a jug or pitcher.

Strain the lemon juice (it’ll be about 1 1/2 to 2c) into the jug or pitcher. If you don’t mind pulp you can skip this step, just make sure you fish out any seeds with a spoon before adding the juice.

Pour 1/2 to all of the sugar syrup into the jug or pitcher, depending on how sweet you like it. Any leftover simple syrup can be used for another batch of lemonade, whiskey sours, rum drinks or pouring over sherbert or cakes for desserts. If you feel like straining out the zests that’s fine but they’re nicely candied and shouldn’t detract from the drinking experience.

If you want to embellish your lemonade with strawberries, raspberries, pomegranate bits, prickly pear fruit or whatever appeals to you, go ahead. Pink lemonade is a classic special treat. I don’t have any berries today so I tried melting some blackberry jam in the microwave and added that. It didn’t work well. I’ll have to get some berries to play with now.

Store any extra simple syrup in a clean jar in the fridge til you’re ready to use it. It’s really kind of pretty.

Enjoy in a tall tumbler, nice wineglass or your favourite TARDIS mug while relaxing in your favourite spot.

Bonus: I realized the caramelization in time to toss in a cup of water to keep it from burning. After finishing the lemonade I re-heated the caramel mistake to make caramel sugar syrup. Use for any bar drink-mixing, cake baking or other dessert use you can think of.

It tastes lovely so I’ll have to experiment with this…later. For now I’ll store it in the fridge and get the back yard weed whacking done.