Spruce Tips Recipe: An Easy Old Fashioned 2 Ingredient Syrup
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You may have never considered making spruce tip recipes to eat, but I’m fixin’ to change your mind with this easy peasy spruce tips recipe. Making a homemade syrup with spruce tips is not only DELICIOUS, it’s actually medicinal and good for you! The have such an unexpected, unique and super yum flavor you need to have stocked in your kitchen.
What are spruce tips?
Spruce tips are the light green new growth on the tips of spruce branches you see every spring. The start in mid-April here in Ohio and you’ll see them through mid-May or even June depending on the weather. They were early this year because April acted like June.
The start as closed little “baskets” on the tips and will slowly open up and fan out to match the rest of the needles on above them on the branches. When they’re closed, they’re the best to use in spruce tips recipes, but opened are just fine, too. I find that closed is just a bit stronger in flavor and more ideal to use. But, if you’re late to the game, open ones’ll do.
What are the benefits of spruce tips?
Spruce tips are another of God’s grand design that are notoriously high in Vitamin C and are very good antimicrobials and antiseptics. Most of the plants we see in early spring contain the vitamins and minerals we need that we didn’t get over the winter hibernation to feed and replenish our bodies! Learning to make many spruce tips recipes is a good skill to have in early spring when you’re foraging.
Isn’t that absolutely amazing?! Just go bite off the tip of a tree a few times in the spring and you’ll prevent scurvy. Kewl.
On our farm we have quite a few very large and very mature blue spruce trees that send off SO MANY shoots every spring. I have more than I’d ever need. And I’m so thankful for it.
One thing frequently missed is that spruce tips are a good expectorant as well. So, that is why I make spruce tip syrup and why you need to make this recipe. Paired with a hot tea with mullein and sweetened with spruce tip syrup, it will help with pesky coughs and really get your airway opened up and cleared out. All with a really pleasant flavor!
Besides making a syrup, spruce tips can be fermented for wild sodas, dehydrated or freeze dried for use in teas, or even tinctured with either alcohol or vinegar as a vinegar infusion or with honey added for an oxymel. Seriously, use it how you want it! I’ve even seen spruce tip pesto recipes, because anything green and edible can be a pesto.
NONE OF THIS IS MEDICAL ADVICE AND YOU KNOW IT SO DON’T EVEN.
Tips for Harvesting Spruce Tips
First thing you need to do is be 100% certain with 100% confidence you are foraging what you think you are foraging. Many conifers look alike, and most grow green tips (even the ornamental yew ones that are going to give you explosive diarrhea), so maybe just like….. I don’t know…. identify your trees. Ok?
Not everything that looks green is edible. We don’t need a re-run of Into the Wild.
I found a really nice guide because I don’t know my conifers outside of a blue spruce, so if you’d like to read this check that out here.
I choose to pick off trees that are not near sprayed fields or roadsides just to avoid pollution and unwanted chemicals if I can. You pick where you want to and call it good!
If you’re picking off mature trees, like really really big ones, you don’t have to worry about over picking them as much as smaller, younger trees. The rule of thumb for harvesting spruce tips I’ve been taught is to not pick more that 25% of a trees new growth. Usually less, especially if you have tons of trees to choose from.
Take a little, but don’t take it all.
When harvesting, gently grasp the tips and pinch them off the branch. They’re very tender and come away easily. Remove the brown spots and add them to a jar, bag, or basket. Try to pick first thing in the morning before the morning sun hits them for best potency and strongest flavor and oils.
Foraged food is delightful and best of all, FREE. So I don’t wanna hear about how I’m privileged and you can’t afford my lifestyle because I’m literally eating tree branches over here, ok?
Other Spruce Tips Recipes
- spruce tip jelly
- dehydrated spruce tips
- freeze dried spruce tips
- spruce tip oxymel
- spruce tip tincture
- spruce tip ham glaze (make this with this spruce tip syrup OMG)
- spruce tip pickles
What Type of Sugar Can I Use?
This one is pretty simple, but also has some rules. MY rules.
You can use WHATEVER sugar you want, as long as it’s not plain white sugar. Plain white sugar has a smell that just doesn’t do an herbal syrup justice. Maybe it’s just me, so use it if you want, but I just cannot. It also turns into a verrrrrrrry unappetizing weird gray tan color that is just…. no. Ewwwww.
My preference is either raw turbinado sugar or coconut sugar. You can even use brown sugar, just make sure it’s not made with white sugar… you want RAW sugar. When mixed with the spruce tips, it makes a nice and rich brown syrup that smells AMAZING, tastes even more AMAZING, and is quite easier on the eyes than the abomination white sugar creates.
Honey will work too, but the syrup will be quite different and it wouldn’t just be an infused honey and not a syrup, but it’s the same gist. And if your metabolic needs would be best with honey, do that. If you do use honey, be sure and stir or shake every single day to keep the spruce tips coated in honey to prevent mold.
My Syrup Molded?!
I have found that mold takes hold with white sugar more easily than raw ones. And where you store it.
Proper storage of a syrup that is made by macerating herbs, like these spruce tips, is in a cool place. I use either my closet pantry or my basement cellar. More ambient and warm areas can lend to easier mold formation.
Make sure you are using clean and sanitized jars and stirring tools.
If you find it keeps molding on you, you can throw the ingredients in a food processor and buzz them together, as was recommended by this blog post.
Is This Even Safe?!
I’m sure the botulism crowd will be after me on this one. BUT, this syrup is cooked before we consume it. You don’t eat it straight out of the jar. The maceration phase on the shelf is an old-timey trick to make syrups that were made with spruce tips and pine cones! They would then take the jar and bury it in the back yard til fall. So, you see why it needs to stay cool.
I make sure to heat the syrup thoroughly prior to bottling and using since this is entirely ONLY spruce tips, and they contain quite a bit less water than pinecones do. You could mix the two if you’d like, or do how I do it. Doesn’t matter, but just don’t be dumb.
Equipment You Might Want:
- Your legs and hands
- Your eyeballs
- Quart Glass Jar with Lid
Ingredients
- 2 cups spruce tips
- 2 cups coconut sugar or raw turbinado sugar
- 1-2 Tbs water
Step 1: Forage Spruce Tips
Properly and accurately identify a spruce tree and gently harvest spruce tips (more info in above blog post).
Add tip to a bowl of cold water and drain.
Step 2: Assemble the Syrup
Into a sanitized glass wide mouth quart jar, layer in the spruce tips and coconut sugar.
Add a lid, vacuum seal it, and set the syrup aside for 2 days in a cool area.
Step 3: Maceration & Aging
After 2-3 days, you will notice the spruce tips beginning to macerate and add liquid to the sugar. At this point, begin stirring your syrup daily with a clean spoon.
Add the lid back on and let it sit.
As the ingredients in that jar shrinks, you can add more fresh sugar & spruce tips mixture to maintain the headspace and “fullness” of the jar, which decreases the amount of air space lending to mold formation.
Continue aging your syrup mixture for 3-4 weeks. You’re looking for a dark color and a good, strong spruce smell.
Step 4: Make the Syrup
Once the maceration mixture is ready, dump the contents of the jar into a small stock pot on your stove. Add 1 Tbs water.
Bring this mixture to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Just enough to dissolve all the sugar. I let it bubble for maybe 3 minutes once good and dissolved.
If the syrup seems really thick, or is thicker than your liking, add another 1 Tbs of water until it is the consistency you want.
Step 5: Storage
Strain the syrup and store in a flip cap bottle or mason jar with the lid vacuum sealed. If the syrup crystallizes and doesn’t pour after refrigeration, simply heat it back up, add a little more water and see if that helps. Refrigeration does thicken it a bit.
Store in the fridge or for long term storage, process in a water bath for 10 minutes or open kettle can for shelf stability.
To Use:
Use to sweeten lemonades or other drinks where a simple syrup would be good. Remember this syrup is almost 100% all sugar, so it’s not a 1:1 substitute. It’s also great in tea to help soothe coughs and congestions and for flavoring wild sodas in the second ferment.
Notes:
Vacuum sealing the jar lid helps prevent mold during the maceration phase & during storage due to removing the air. No oxygen, no mold.
You can add other herbs and flavors to this syrup if you’d like. I like to add some orange peels and a vanilla bean! Just don’t go overboard, because you want this syrup to be true to the spruce tip flavor!
Equipment
- Your legs and hands
- Your eyeballs
- Quart Glass Jar with Lid
Ingredients
- 2 cups spruce tips
- 2 cups coconut sugar or raw turbinado sugar
- 1-2 Tbs water
Instructions
- Properly and accurately identify a spruce tree and gently harvest spruce tips (more info in above blog post).
- Add tip to a bowl of cold water and drain.
- Into a sanitized glass wide mouth quart jar, layer in the spruce tips and coconut sugar.
- Add a lid, vacuum seal it, and set the syrup aside for 2 days in a cool area.
- After 2-3 days, you will notice the spruce tips beginning to macerate and add liquid to the sugar. At this point, begin stirring your syrup daily with a clean spoon.
- Add the lid back on and let it sit.
- As the ingredients in that jar shrinks, you can add more fresh sugar & spruce tips mixture to maintain the headspace and “fullness” of the jar, which decreases the amount of air space lending to mold formation.
- Continue aging your syrup mixture for 3-4 weeks. You’re looking for a dark color and a good, strong spruce smell.
- Once the maceration mixture is ready, dump the contents of the jar into a small stock pot on your stove. Add 1 Tbs water.
- Bring this mixture to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Just enough to dissolve all the sugar. I let it bubble for maybe 3 minutes once good and dissolved.
- If the syrup seems really thick, or is thicker than your liking, add another 1 Tbs of water until it is the consistency you want.
- Strain the syrup and store in a flip cap bottle or mason jar with the lid vacuum sealed. If the syrup crystallizes and doesn’t pour after refrigeration, simply heat it back up, add a little more water and see if that helps. Refrigeration does thicken it a bit.
- Store in the fridge or for long term storage, process in a water bath for 10 minutes or open kettle can for shelf stability.
To Use:
- Use to sweeten lemonades or other drinks where a simple syrup would be good. Remember this syrup is almost 100% all sugar, so it’s not a 1:1 substitute. It’s also great in tea to help soothe coughs and congestions and for flavoring wild sodas in the second ferment.
