Lilacs are in full bloom right now and they are edible. But how does one eat this ephemeral spring beauty?
Photo courtesy of Soma Chocolate.
The brilliant minds at Soma first posted about cooking with lilacs a few years ago. And every spring they perfect their technique. First harvest a lot of lilac blooms. Here’s what Soma posted on their socials:
Lilacs are totally edible, part of the olive family. The flowers are oil-free, making their essence impossible to distill. So how does one capture their fleeting ethereal scent?
Lilac gelato!!
At the peak of the season, with the help of friends, baskets of fluffy pink, purple-blue blooms are harvested. We spend a very zen day hand-plucking each individual flower off their stem and soak them in a bath of cream to let the flowers infuse. The precious cream is then spun it into a dreamy creamy lilac gelato. Very limited edition. Made with a bajillion gazillion Lilac flowers.
Lilac sugar and lilac syrup. Photos courtesy of The Farmer’s Daughter
The simplest way to capture lilac essence in your kitchen is to make lilac sugar and syrup. Here’s how they do it at one of our favourite blogs, The Farmer’s Daughter. They advise that you only use the blossom, not the green stem. Be careful to only use flowers from the Common Lilac, not a Persian Lilac or Chinaberry bush. Every single blossom must be hand plucked. Once you have enough you can make your sugar or syrup and then use it in cocktails, frosting or homemade ice cream. You can also make candied lilacs to decorate cakes or cupcakes, like these beautiful petits fours (pictured above) by Ricardo.
Spring is here. Eat a lilac.