Herb Syrups

A herb syrup is a most appealing way of capturing the scent of a herb for use later in the year. Herb syrups are an excellent way of sweetening and flavouring desserts like sorbets, ice creams and custards. Alternatively, a herb syrup can be used hot or cold as a sauce for a steamed pudding or an ice cream: for example, try drizzling a lemon verbena wine syrup over a freshly baked sponge cake just before serving with pouring cream.

The best herbs to use for making a flavoured syrup have a fairly strong scent: they include angelica, aniseed, elderflower, fennel, rose geranium and scented leaf geraniums, hyssop, lavender, lemon balm, lemon verbena, all mints, pineapple sage, rose petals, rosemary, sweet cicely and sweet violet.