Cultivation Quarters

Ken Litchfield

    Herbal Sugar Extractions for Flavorings and Fermentations - Simple Raw Syrups by Osmosis from Fresh Fruits, Roots, Leaves, and Flowers to Extract Flavors, Fragrances, and Essences, with a Focus on Applications with Mushrooms. For this month’s Cultivation Quarters I’m going to describe a new food preservation technique, that can be used for several applications, including certain kinds of fungal cultivation, usually classified as fermentations.
    Though I may have “invented” this process, I didn’t realize this until I couldn’t find much of any information about it except the relatively well known process of putting sugar on strawberries, even if they are sweet, to produce syrupy strawberries. It is also the same principle involved in salting or marinating the outside of unground muscle meats like hams for curing. I knew of the principle of osmosis from biology studies and had applied it to other fruits like cherries and goldenberries or Cape gooseberries years ago. Back maybe 5 years ago when we had about the last really good rains predrought, I had tried this method on an extra bountiful stash of fresh candy caps to see if a fresh candy cap syrup would have the same flavor as the dried mushroom. Over the years I tried these osmotic sugar extracts on various herbal candidates like rose petals, chocolate peppermint flowers, spearmint leaves, quince, ashwaganda berries, and others. More recently with the Counter Culture Labs space at Omni Commons we’ve been performing all kinds of experiments with some rather novel candidates. This process creates a simple syrup more simply than the regular method of making simple syrups by cooking. The advantages to this sugar osmosis process are that it is quicker and easier than cooking, none of the volatiles or heat sensitive constituents are destroyed with this raw process, and it is so safe even little kids can perform it quickly in a classroom setting without the complications of stovetop activities or dangers of heat burns.
    To perform this process you need a clear glass jar with a sealable lid, canning or Mason jars are perfect, a bag of granulated white sugar or carton of powdered baker’s sugar, and the fresh herbal produce that you want to extract a syrup from. Fresh fruits, roots, leaves and flowers are all possible with the juiciest candidates making the quickest syrups. Fruits and roots are best extracted with granulated white sugar due to their extra moisture content and leaves and flowers are best extracted by Baker’s sugar, a finely powdered sugar that has no corn starch added to keep it from caking. Baker’s sugar coats the leaves and petals more closely and works for extracting leaves and petals that aren’t as fleshy as fruits and roots. Sometimes it helps to wet the leaves or petals with water and shake them out or spin with a salad spinner so the surfaces are more receptive to the sugar. Tossing the wetted leaves or petals and Bakers sugar in a bowl to coat them better before putting them in the jar sometimes helps to prevent caking or layering of unsugared leaves in the jar. Bulky mushrooms like morels, porcinis, and chanterelles fall under the category of fruits and roots and delicate mushrooms like candy caps or mahjeeks fall under the category of leaves and flowers.
    As a starting example, you can get several fresh carrots from the store or garden, slice and dice them finely, and fill the glass jar with the pieces. Then pour on the granulated white sugar straight from the bag until all the interstitial spaces between the pieces are fully filled with sugar and the pieces are fully encased. You can tap the jar to settle the sugar or alternate layers of sugar with pieces of carrot. Once the jar is filled with the sugar and there is a thin layer of sugar completely submerging the top of the carrot pieces, you can seal the jar with the lid. Generally the amount of sugar recommended would be equal to the weight or volume of the thing being extracted or maybe two thirds sugar to one third thing. Within about 15 minutes the sugar is being liquified by the moisture being sucked out of the cut carrot roots. By 30 minutes the jar is already partly filled with the sugar extracted contents of the carrot cells. If you use orange carrots the syrup produced will be very carrot flavored but not all that orange colored compared to the roots. However if you use purple carrots, Berkeley Bowl and Trader Joes both have them, then the syrup will be very carrot flavored and almost as deep purple red as black cherry syrup. The strained, drained carrot pieces can be put in the dehydrator for candied carrots that can be eaten as is or ground into candied carrot powder for flavoring, say, carrot cake.
    Black cherries make a wonderful raw syrup. Remove the stems, and pit them with a hand operated cherry pitter and fill the jar with them and pour on the sugar. After the juice syrup has been extracted in one to several days you can pour it off and drain the remaining pitted extracted cherries and put them in the dehydrator to dry into candied cherries. Any residual sugar left in the jar at the bottom of the syrup can be decanted, dehydrated, ground in the coffee grinder, and reused as an extraction sugar for the same kind of fruit or put in a sugar bowl as a flavored sugar. Same for sliced plum, peach, pear, apple, persimmon, or other big moist fruit with body integrity. If you are extracting berries like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, or mulberries, the fruit may be so disintegrated that it just becomes part of the syrup and not much solid remains can be strained out and dehydrated for candied berries. Goji berries have a little tougher skin and hold their integrity more so could be dehydrated for goji berry candy after syrup extraction. For an even more interesting syrup putting chocolate peppermint leaves in the same jar with blueberries makes it easier to extract the peppermint flavor into the berried syrup than just the straight up leaves would. Chocolate peppermint, spearmint, and anise mint leaves are all primo fresh mints for spiking berry or fruit syrup extracts.
    This method only works with fresh wet herbs, obviously, not dried ones, the juicier the better This method extracts the contents out of the cells by osmosis because the cell walls are surrounded on all sides by a more concentrated sugar solution than inside the cells. The solution on the inside of the cell walls is pulled thru the walls carrying some of the constituents of the cell that can pass thru the walls with it. A modification to this method is to put the jar of sugared herbs or fruit into the freezer right after composing it, leave it for a period from a day to a year, and then take it out and thaw it. By this method the cells walls will break from the production of ice crystals and the full contents of the cells will go into the syrup when it thaws. One day in the freezer is sufficient. You will find that the flavors of the two syrups, frozen/thawed and unfrozen, will be different from each other.
    This osmosis process not only sucks the juices out of the herbal produce you want to extract, it also sucks the life contents out of the cells of living yeasts, molds, and bacteria and any other organisms that might ferment or otherwise decay the product. So this syrup extract inside the jar is sterile from this process. So long as it isn’t diluted too much the syrup will remain too concentrated for living organisms to tolerate, but if it is diluted it could be used as a sugar source to ferment into alcohol in wines, and beers, or into alcohol and vinegar in kombuchas. If you like, once you compose the extract jar with or without freezing, you can place it in the fridge for one day to several weeks while the sugar extracts the syrup under chilly conditions.
    There is one caveat about all these syrups and that has to do with the possible safety of some of them. Most are created from commonly used produce that is well known and well used in the culinary world by more traditional food preparation techniques. However, with raw mushroom extracts, theoretically at least, it could be possible that whatever raw constituents that might be toxic in some form or fashion in a particular mushroom could be extracted into a raw syrup. It is well known and commonly recommended that all mushrooms be cooked well to at least help break down the chiton in the cell walls for digestion. Otherwise, many folks, or some, find they have “gastrointestinal upset” which is so broad of a symptom it is difficult to attribute any particular manifestation of that to any particular constituent. It may well be that a sugar extract can or can’t extract chiton and therefore have an effect on digestion. Perhaps if it can extract it, it is in such a form that it doesn’t cause upset. Perhaps there are other constituents that are common to most or all raw mushrooms that are the actual upsetters instead of chiton and these might get extracted or not with these syrups. So care in using the syrups is recommended. Probably tasting them would be in such a small amount that no untoward effects would be noticed. Probably the same if they were used as flavorings drizzled over ice cream or cheesecake. But if you used a greater quantity to, say, ferment a mushroom wine from a mushroom syrup extract there may be some more careful experimenting called for in imbibing that wine. Under no circumstances would I recommend ever making a syrup out of a known deadly or severely toxic mushroom such as a death cap.
    The other aspect of toxicity that might be of concern is what organism might be able to contaminate the syrup if it becomes dilute enough for the organism to survive. Mostly molds are what could be germinating on these syrups, similarly to mold on jelly in the fridge, but not if they have a layer of granulated sugar that remains on the top of the syrup and fruit or other material mix. If the jar isn’t opened then any spores that were in it when the sugar extract was first made would get sucked out at that time or whenever the spores tried to germinate. Theoretically, at least, there would be nothing able to survive in the concentrated syrup but possibly after all the internal liquids were extracted and some sort of equilibrium was reached then the concentration may be lower but if the jar didn’t get opened to the air after the extraction process began then no new spores or organisms would have an opportunity to gain access to the contents. I do notice that some extracts like rose petals seem to keep their flavor and fragrance for long periods well after their first creation. Some others like carrots and fruits seem to have a very fresh and complex flavor and fragrance profile for several weeks but over time seem to “decay” perhaps by some sort of enzymatic process in the syrup that doesn’t require a living organism. So if you make use of your carrot syrup in a carrot cake within two weeks of making the syrup the cake will have a really carroty flavor if you used carrot syrup for the sugar ingredient of the cake, and fresh carrots for the carrot ingredient, and a supplement of candied carrot powder in the flour ingredient.
    We’ve made quite a few syrups and dehydrated candies as novelties just to see what they would be like. Obvious things like lemon, lime, orange, kumquat, or calamondin, make good candied citrus and excellent syrups but the aromatic citron and Buddha’s hand both make great aromatic syrups as does the quince. We’ve made excellent savory Allium syrups from onions, garlic, and shallots and we’re looking to do chives also. Ginger, turmeric, and galangal make zingiberific syrups that blend well with the Alliums for making stimulating anti cold remedies. Bell pepper syrup is quick and very bell peppery but syrups from habaneros, Trinidad scorpions, and especially Carolina Reapers might be dangerous to evaluate. Rose petal syrup is one of the very best; use red Chrysler Imperial for the richest flavor and deep red color and Double Delight with the red parts cut off as a golden amber rose petal syrup that is from the second most fragrant rose. Juicy rose hips from wild roses make raw syrup rich in vitamin C because no heat was used to extract the juice and preserve it in syrup. Temperate rather than tropical strawberry or pineapple guavas from the Feijoa tree make the most amazing bubblegum flavored syrup from the thick flower petals. White alpine strawberries, which have their own unique flavor, impart that to their syrup. Herbs like horehound leaves or fresh marshmallow root make readymade cough syrup, and can be blended with the Alliums, Zingibers, and rosehips for even better cold and flu symptomsyrup. Avocado syrup is quite interesting. We’ve even made cheese syrups out of goat cheese and roquefort. Theoretically you could make enchilada, or lasagna, or pizza syrups. Maybe Mexican churros with enchilada syrup drizzled on them might be a hit.
    Most mushrooms, being well loaded with water, make copious flavored syrups. Candy caps are easy to extract producing a syrup with a more complex flavor profile than the maple syrup of dried tradition. I went all last winter waiting for chanterelle season to begin so I could make chanterelle syrup but had to end up going to Berkeley Bowl for their chunkiest specimens. This past spring did produce lots of morels and porcinis at Mt Shasta and they make two of the most intense savory syrups you could sample. The morels were extracted from whole freshies and the porcinis were so ripe that we just peeled the pore layer off the bottom of the cap and sugared that. Shaggie parasols have a nice freshly hulled pecan flavor when they are dehydrated and perhaps something similar would extract into shaggy parasol syrup.