Lavender, Sugar?

I'm blessed to live in a Mediterranean climate where lavender thrives. There's something so nostalgic and sentimental about the scent of lavender that I've heard people say the fragrance reminds them of their grandmother, or the family farm, or a terraced hillside in southern France in the summer. Lavender is all of those things, but they are also more trouble for the gardener than anyone likes to admit.

Young lavender plants are spectacular, pungent, and romantic. But when they have been in the ground a few years, they tend to get woody and start dying back and you need to start cutting out large clumps in the hopes that they will fill in and look fresh again. Sometimes they do, and often they don't.

In my garden, I have drifts of English lavender (Lavendula angustifolia), French lavender (L. dentata), and Spanish lavender (L. stoechus), a dwarf Lavendula munstead, and probably a few hybrids that never had a botanical name bestowed upon them like L. whatever. Regardless of their pedigree or lack thereof, all my lavenders are visual and olfactory delights.

Last summer, I picked a generous bunch of lavender blooms, removed the flower heads from the stem, and let the flower buds fall away from the flowers. Because I don't spray my herbs, I was very comfortable adding the flower buds to some sugar for flavor. I used enough sugar to almost fill a quart-sized glass jar, and filled in the rest with lavender buds. The proportions were roughly 3-1/2 cups white cane sugar (the molasses in brown sugar will overwhelm lavender) and 1/2 cup of lavender buds. Cap the jar and give it a good shake, and store the jar in a cool, dry place, shaking the jar every few days for a couple of weeks. Your lavender sugar is ready to use when you get a good, strong, unmistakable whiff of lavender when you open the jar. If not, store it a little longer.

If you're queasy about having dried lavender buds mixed into your white sugar, just sift them out and save them for the next batch. Or, you can tie up the lavender buds in a muslin or cheesecloth pouch, bouquet garni-style, and bury the pouch in the sugar, removing it when you're ready to use the sugar.

There are all kinds of culinary uses for lavender sugar in baking: cookies, cakes, scones, etc. You can even use a few drops of food coloring to tint lavender sugar for frosting.

At the end of the summer, my neighbors planned a block party and it was my job to bring a family-friendly non-alcoholic beverage. I filled a large decorative glass urn with homemade lemonade, sweetened with lavender sugar. Because I was hoping to avoid exclamations of "EWWWWW!" from the kids, I had strained out the lavender buds before I filled the urn. For dramatic effect, I added a few long sprigs of lavender to the jar, and everyone was duly impressed, even the kids.