I made my own blood orange syrup and you can too! All you need to make your own flavored syrup are two ingredients: sugar and flavoring, and you can make any custom syrup you want.

Creating your own syrup is simple and fun. The base of simple syrup is just sugar and water boiled together on a stovetop until the mixture reaches the desired syrup consistency.

Though it may seem more difficult, the process of making flavored syrup is just as easy as making simple syrup: boil together the flavoring, sugar, and water together, and voila! Flavored syrup!

This is where it gets fun.

I had blood oranges on hand, so blood orange syrup was in the stars for me. However, the flavor combinations are endless: cloves, vanilla, berries, other citrus fruit, coconut, rosemary, or wherever else your creativity takes you. With such a simple process, one can experiment endlessly and truly be creative in the kitchen.

I flavored my syrup with sliced blood orange rounds that would double as candied blood orange slices when the syrup was finished. Once I removed the candied blood oranges from the saucepan, I was left with a magenta, blood orange syrup.

At this point, I was itching to try out my blood orange syrup creation on pancakes, so I whipped out a serving of Trader Joe’s Gluten-Free and Dairy Free Homestyle Pancakes from the freezer.

These pre-cooked, plastic-wrapped pancakes are great for lazy mornings. I heat them up in the microwave and then top them with whatever I’m feeling. Whether that ends up being berries, syrup, Nutella, or yogurt, the result is always a delicious start to the day (or sometimes dinner).

I enjoyed the fruit syrup of my labor and generously slathered my pancakes with blood orange syrup and topped them off with a candied blood orange round.

Such a simple change–flavored simple syrup instead of traditional maple syrup–transformed a basic breakfast of frozen pancakes into a delightful good morning brunch filled with the bright taste of citrus.

I hope you get a chance to try making some homemade syrup of your own and let me know how it goes below. What flavors will you try?

Items used in this post:

Cutting board
Chef’s knife
Saucepan – this nonstick Calphalon Sauté Pan is my go to
Stirring spoon – I usually reach for my IKEA nonstick spoon
Glass bowls
Plate – IKEA FÄRGRIK dinner set

Blood Orange Syrup

Author: Nina

Ingredients

1 cup blood orange juice (strained)
1/2 cup sugar

Instructions

In a low and wide pot, combine sugar and juice over high heat for the sugar to dissolve.
After 15 minutes, lower heat to medium until the syrup has thickened.

Recipe Notes

Blood Orange Syrup is a natural byproduct of making candied blood oranges.

Alternatively, you can make just the syrup by using blood orange juice instead of sliced blood oranges like in this recipe.