Herb Sugars
Three jars of herb sugar
Herb sugar is kind of like a secret weapon. It adds some floral, herby flavor where you don’t expect it. I love it in recipes like shortbread. Use some lemon verbena sugar and a bit of lime zest and people know there’s something different about it, but they just can’t quite put their finger on it. Don’t limit them to baking - mint iced tea - yum!!!
Making herb sugar is a snap. I use herbs from the garden, but you can certainly use store bought (or farmers market bought). Look for leaves that haven’t wilted, organic if possible.
HERB SUGAR
-Fresh herbs (I used lemon verbena and mint, but you can also do thyme or most other herbs)
-Sugar (I use white and vegan white)
Wash your herbs and dry them really well. I use a salad spinner and then lay them out to dry on paper towels for a few hours.
Take the herbs off their stems and measure them. Why measure? Let’s say you’re using them in a recipe that uses 100 grams of sugar. If you’re using herb sugar and measure out 100 grams, you’re not actually using 100 grams of sugar, and it could change how your recipe bakes up. I measure the herbs and the sugar so that I know how much to add to get the right amount of sugar for my recipe.
Measure your sugar (see #2). You want a high ratio of sugar to herbs. Why? Two reasons - the first is that I’ve found the herbs grind up much better if there’s a lot of sugar in there to help break them down. Also, you don’t want to make a paste, you want a bunch of sugar that is flavored with the herbs you’re using. In the lemon verbena I made, the ration was about 1 part lemon verbena to 19 or 20 parts sugar.
Tip the sugar and the herbs into a food processor fit with a steel blade and grind them up. You want the herbs to be finely ground so no one gets a hulking mouthful of leaves.
Put into a resealable plastic bag or glass jar and label it with your herb to sugar information. If you’re going to be storing it for the long term, you can keep it in the freezer.
Enjoy!
