I promised I'd post a recipe for these when I managed to get something repeatable, and it seems that I have. Part of it is still "whatever feels right", but I have a basic recipe and technique to build off of, now.
So, with cold and flu season upon us, many people are reaching for the cough syrup or cough drops. In New England, at least, the air is cold and dry, leading to hacking coughs.
I just started working in an office environment, where I can hear the chime(?) of coughs and sneezes across the chain of cubicles, and multiple people in my area are complaining of sore throats.
Is the looming threat of the cold and flu virus inescapable? NO!!! Other than important basics such as washing your hands, there are herbal/natural remedies that can help prevent or at least lessen the symptoms of winter illnesses.
Elderberry, for example, has been used for hundreds of years to treat cold and flu viruses, and apparently there's some scientific backing for it. (Click here for the WebMD article). I do know that elderberry syrup in peppermint tea has been something that has worked well to short-circuit colds for the girls and I for the last few years.
Recently, I realized that while Elderberry syrup is effective, it is sometimes a bit...unwieldy...to use. I try to put mine in an old squeezable honey bottle, but if it's in a jar, it can drip all over the place while trying to add it into tea. Cough drops, though, can either be sucked on by themselves or dissolved into tea...and if the jar gets knocked over on your desk, it doesn't make a mess. (No, there's no actual story there, just awful visions of possibilities.)
So...how do you make these wonderful things?
Basic Cough Drop Recipe
1/2 cup "water" (substitutions for water will be explained later.)
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp(ish) Honey
1 Tbsp(ish) Lemon Juice (Fresh or "RealLemon" from the store, but use liquid juice.)
Put all these things together in a small saucepan. It won't look like much, but trust me, it will be plenty...and you want the space for it to boil without boiling over.
Turn on your stove to med-high heat. Stir gently until the sugar dissolves, then stir occasionally throughout the process.
You want to cook this to 290F. If you know how to test this to get to the "hard crack" stage, great...otherwise, use a thermometer. For me, it took about 15 minutes. Pay attention, though...the temperature goes up pretty quickly.
When you reach 290F, turn off the heat. Let your syrup cool slightly, so it will be a thick syrup and not a bunch of bubbles.
Use a spoon (or turkey baster...but this gets tricky to clean) to drop syrup in small drops on parchment paper. Work quickly. As this stuff cools, it hardens pretty quickly.
You can either sprinkle powdered sugar on these as they're cooling, or toss in powdered sugar after they've completely hardened to keep them from sticking together. (I may try not coating them in powdered sugar for my next batch, because my last batch seemed pretty good and dry. This may be more important in humid environments, but in New Hampshire, it's pretty dry right now. Once they're completely cool and hardened (I'd leave them overnight, just to be safe), they can be stored in a jar or ziploc bag. They can either be sucked on like candy, or dropped into hot liquid and melted. (See! you can still put the elderberry in your mint tea without making a mess)
How to clean the pan and utensils
This part is kinda important, and I had to look it up separately. Melted sugar would be a pain to have to scrape out of a pan and off utensils, but it's actually really easy to clean up. Add clean water to your pan and put it back on the stove. The sugar will melt into the water and can be poured down the drain.
Spoons can be cleaned the same way...just set them in the hot water and let the sugar melt off.
Turkey Basters...can be a bit more difficult. I put hot water in the top of mine and set it in the pan with the hot water, and after a bit, pulled a big chunk of sugar/candy out through the top with my (digital) thermometer.
What to use instead of "water"
Ok... this is going to change based on the purpose of your cough drops.
For Cold/Flu Prevention: Steep Elderberries and RoseHips in hot water for 10-20 minutes. Strain the solids (or use a tea ball in the first place) and use that for your liquid. The elderberry combats the cold/flu virus, and the rosehips have vitamin C, which is always good. The Elderberry has a kind of dark, not quite licorice-berry flavor, and the rosehips have a citrusy flavor.
For Cold/Flu Treatment: I used "Children's Cold Ease Tea" that I got from The Mustard Seed here in New Hampshire. (The Mustard Seed has great herbal tea remedies, and if your're not local, they will ship for prices that are good enough that I sometimes order from them because the shipping costs less than my time and gas to drive there.) When I made my coughdrops from this, I also added elderberries while I steeped the tea.
For Sore Throats: Use water, but add 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg. Each of these herbs does something different to help with a sore throat and/or the cold bits that can accompany a sore throat, and they taste good together. The coughdrops I made with the ground herbs did come out feeling a bit rougher than the ones made with elderberries or tea. You could probably avoid this (and possibly have them even more effective) by making a tincture of fresh ginger, whole cloves, chips of cinnamon, and maybe chunks of nutmeg, and straining these out before making the coughdrops.
So, with cold and flu season upon us, many people are reaching for the cough syrup or cough drops. In New England, at least, the air is cold and dry, leading to hacking coughs.
I just started working in an office environment, where I can hear the chime(?) of coughs and sneezes across the chain of cubicles, and multiple people in my area are complaining of sore throats.
Is the looming threat of the cold and flu virus inescapable? NO!!! Other than important basics such as washing your hands, there are herbal/natural remedies that can help prevent or at least lessen the symptoms of winter illnesses.
Elderberry, for example, has been used for hundreds of years to treat cold and flu viruses, and apparently there's some scientific backing for it. (Click here for the WebMD article). I do know that elderberry syrup in peppermint tea has been something that has worked well to short-circuit colds for the girls and I for the last few years.
Recently, I realized that while Elderberry syrup is effective, it is sometimes a bit...unwieldy...to use. I try to put mine in an old squeezable honey bottle, but if it's in a jar, it can drip all over the place while trying to add it into tea. Cough drops, though, can either be sucked on by themselves or dissolved into tea...and if the jar gets knocked over on your desk, it doesn't make a mess. (No, there's no actual story there, just awful visions of possibilities.)
So...how do you make these wonderful things?
Basic Cough Drop Recipe
1/2 cup "water" (substitutions for water will be explained later.)
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp(ish) Honey
1 Tbsp(ish) Lemon Juice (Fresh or "RealLemon" from the store, but use liquid juice.)
(This works best on a gas stove. You want it to boil and cook quickly, as there's some scientific thing that happens with sugar if you heat it too slowly. If you have an electric stove, but have a gas camp stove...use your camp stove. Electric Really doesn't do well for hard candy, which is essentially what this is.)
Put all these things together in a small saucepan. It won't look like much, but trust me, it will be plenty...and you want the space for it to boil without boiling over.
Turn on your stove to med-high heat. Stir gently until the sugar dissolves, then stir occasionally throughout the process.
You want to cook this to 290F. If you know how to test this to get to the "hard crack" stage, great...otherwise, use a thermometer. For me, it took about 15 minutes. Pay attention, though...the temperature goes up pretty quickly.
When you reach 290F, turn off the heat. Let your syrup cool slightly, so it will be a thick syrup and not a bunch of bubbles.
Use a spoon (or turkey baster...but this gets tricky to clean) to drop syrup in small drops on parchment paper. Work quickly. As this stuff cools, it hardens pretty quickly.
You can either sprinkle powdered sugar on these as they're cooling, or toss in powdered sugar after they've completely hardened to keep them from sticking together. (I may try not coating them in powdered sugar for my next batch, because my last batch seemed pretty good and dry. This may be more important in humid environments, but in New Hampshire, it's pretty dry right now. Once they're completely cool and hardened (I'd leave them overnight, just to be safe), they can be stored in a jar or ziploc bag. They can either be sucked on like candy, or dropped into hot liquid and melted. (See! you can still put the elderberry in your mint tea without making a mess)
How to clean the pan and utensils
This part is kinda important, and I had to look it up separately. Melted sugar would be a pain to have to scrape out of a pan and off utensils, but it's actually really easy to clean up. Add clean water to your pan and put it back on the stove. The sugar will melt into the water and can be poured down the drain.
Spoons can be cleaned the same way...just set them in the hot water and let the sugar melt off.
Turkey Basters...can be a bit more difficult. I put hot water in the top of mine and set it in the pan with the hot water, and after a bit, pulled a big chunk of sugar/candy out through the top with my (digital) thermometer.
What to use instead of "water"
Ok... this is going to change based on the purpose of your cough drops.
For Cold/Flu Prevention: Steep Elderberries and RoseHips in hot water for 10-20 minutes. Strain the solids (or use a tea ball in the first place) and use that for your liquid. The elderberry combats the cold/flu virus, and the rosehips have vitamin C, which is always good. The Elderberry has a kind of dark, not quite licorice-berry flavor, and the rosehips have a citrusy flavor.
For Cold/Flu Treatment: I used "Children's Cold Ease Tea" that I got from The Mustard Seed here in New Hampshire. (The Mustard Seed has great herbal tea remedies, and if your're not local, they will ship for prices that are good enough that I sometimes order from them because the shipping costs less than my time and gas to drive there.) When I made my coughdrops from this, I also added elderberries while I steeped the tea.
For Sore Throats: Use water, but add 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg. Each of these herbs does something different to help with a sore throat and/or the cold bits that can accompany a sore throat, and they taste good together. The coughdrops I made with the ground herbs did come out feeling a bit rougher than the ones made with elderberries or tea. You could probably avoid this (and possibly have them even more effective) by making a tincture of fresh ginger, whole cloves, chips of cinnamon, and maybe chunks of nutmeg, and straining these out before making the coughdrops.
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