Using your math + Low Waste Recipe
Strawberry top and passionfruit syrup that I did not shatter on the floor <3
So last time I made a gorgeous low waste syrup for use in coffee and cocktails, the jar of said syrup shattered on my ugly tile floor. Jump scare tile floor once again:
Anyway, I was determined to redeem myself. And to talk you into making syrups at home for fun and excitement. They’re very beginner-friendly and you can EXPERIMENT. I will, of course, give you the measurements I used, but I’m also going to show you the math I learned in sophomore chemistry. Literally never tell anyone how much I use the math I learned in school. Never calculus, but conversions for sure.
Basically, you can use almost anything edible to make a syrup. Sometimes I’ll google “[random fruit] syrup” just to see if someone else has dared to make the syrup I’m attempting or if I’m a deviant syrup sicko, but usually I just go for it. I learned a few years ago that you can make a gorgeous syrup from strawberry TOPS. The things you cut off and throw in your trash (if you’re basic) or your compost (if you’re a little better than basic). The tops. So I’d been saving my strawberry tops in the freezer until my little containers became unwieldy in the freezer.
So I was all ready to make my strawberry top syrup when I noticed a sort of haunting presence on my counter. It wasn’t malevolent, but it was sad. It was, of course, the sight of three very ripe passionfruit that I’d forgotten to use and were wishing for sweet reprieve.
If I was cringey, I’d say something about how I like passionfruit because they taste better when they’re aged and wrinkled. But I’m not, so I won’t.
Strawberry and passionfruit go together. This isn’t a question. So I made strawberry passionfruit syrup.
This syrup starts with math. The syrup ratio is 4 cups fruit : 3 cups water : 3 cups sugar. But I do everything in grams. Because sometimes you don’t have four cups of fruit. Or sometimes you don’t have 3 cups of sugar. So you weigh the fruit you have (in this case passionfruit curd and strawberry tops) and you get out some paper and do some math. Here is my math, for those who care.
Obviously you just cross multiply and simplify, baby. Because sugar and water are in equal parts, I just did the math for one of them, totally legal. So I had 372g strawberry tops and 109g of passionfruit pulp for a total of 481g of fruit. Solve for x, and you get 360g of sugar (and equal parts water as I said before.
So I’ll write up my recipe with those weights, but know you can swap out the fruit for whatever you have and then do a little math.
Ingredients
372g strawberry tops (seriously, you don’t have to remove the green stuff)
109g passionfruit pulp
360g water
360g sugar
Combine everything in a pot and heat to boiling. Let the mixture boil for about 10 minutes (keep an eye on it so it doesn’t bubble over). Turn down your heat and let simmer for about 20 more minutes. Remove from heat and strain into jars. Compost your boiled tops and pulp like a good girl. Enjoy the syrup over coffee, in cocktails, soaked into your cake layers, on yogurt, in tea, wherever. Go to heaven.
There’s no denying that humans, especially Americans, are getting dumber by the minute. By the second even. Things are bleak. Criticism is fully dead but that’s not what this is about. Doing some math might wake up something dormant in your brain. Give it go! Do some math, babe. Also, don’t use your GPS as much. My friend stopped me from using mine recently and I’m truly grateful because it is a crutch I do not need, like using a real crutch after the bone is healed. You can’t let the brain muscle atrophy!!! Do a crossword puzzle or do conversions that then leave you with beautiful syrups (my jam recipe a few posts ago has some math too). And yeah, I’m marketing the need to do some math in these recipes as a benefit to you. YOU’RE WELCOME.
Two different memories came to mind reading this. The first image reminded me of the time I made a gingerbread house, took it to school brought all the way back home after school and right at my front doorstep dropped it. It very much resembled this shattered jar.