Balm calms.

It’s the time for changes. Maybe that’s the reason why I cut my hair? Don’t know. I always have my hair short but this summer I had it at about shoulder length. Looks horrible on me if we’re honest. I always have to tie them up (as you could see here). Normally I just have short hair. Not for the last 8 month though. So when I cut it back to what I consider my comfort zone hair cut at my trusted hair dresser close to my parent’s house, I got a lot of attention. I mean a lot! I’m a little embarrassed. Yes, I cut my hair. Can we move on? However the worst was, when a work colleague touched my hair. Without asking. Don’t touch it! Seriously! You can’t just go around and touch other people’s hair randomly. No. Seriously. Who does that? She’s Italian. Not an excuse but maybe an explanation. Or is it me? Should I not care about people touching my hair unannounced?

Anyways. I needed something calming after such an unpleasant encounter. Luckily I made some balm syrup when I was at my parent’s house. (And that’s how I come back to the purpose of this post. Very clever, huh? You didn’t think that I can come from my new hair cut to the balm syrup recipe, did you?! You can call me master of the words now.) Balm is apparently very calming. It can be used dried in herbal teas or made into the most delicious syrup (see my preference here?).

The recipe is quite similar to elder flower syrup but done in a different order.

All you need is:
– balm flowers (about a handful, the more the better!)
– 1 kg sugar
– 1 l water
– 3 Tbsp citric

Just so you know, this is how balm flowers look like:

You can pull the flowers from the stem and suck on them. They have a very sweet flavour. I did that as a kid until I found out that there will be no flowers left to make balm syrup. Nobody dares to ever mess with me and my balm syrup. Not even me.

To make the syrup preheat the water in a large pan and dissolve the sugar (don’t let it go brown). Put it aside and cool it down to room temperature. Then add the citric and flowers. Stir well and let it rest from 24 h to 3 days. Sieve it into bottles and you’re done! It’s really the easiest thing to do. You can also dry the flowers and decide to make the syrup later.

The difference in making compared to elder flower syrup is that I added the citric together with the flowers. This will extract the colour from the blooms and make the syrup slightly pinkish red.

What do you think of this cheesy photo background? I was in need for some cheesy-ness.
I also added the flower ice cubes. Just because I can.

Now. Carry on!