Black Locust Recipe Roundup

In about another week the black locust trees will bloom for about 8-12 days, a brief period in which we collect and eat them like mad. We have only frozen them with mild success. They lose their charming snap and crunch and become suitable only for adding to cooked recipes like custards and oatmeal after freezing.

Black locust blossoms are best eaten raw out-of-hand, but we still created a few recipes with this fragrant bloom. Our favorite is likely the syrup; mixing it with carbonated water or seltzer makes an awesome soda, and it can be used as a flavored syrup for mixed drinks, with a black locust cluster tucked over the rim of the glass which has been rolled in flavored sugar. The flowers can be ground into sugar to flavor it by using a mortar and pestle, or by pulsing them together in a food processor, but the sugar tends to get clumpy if kept for too long. The syrup can also be poured over shaved ice, or saved and poured over snow in the winter. A simple refreshing drink can be made by infusing the blossoms in water with lemons for a few hours, then filtering the solids out, and serving chilled with a splash of the black locust syrup. We even make a simple wine, by fermenting the blossoms with sugar and yeast, then filtering and racking for a few months for a stunningly clear drink, mildly fragrant and sweet, but that recipe hasn't been written down just yet, we need to test it out a few more times!

Black Locust Flower Syrup

Black Locust Doughnuts

Black Locust Jelly

Black Locust Custard

Black Locust Palacsinta

Jelly, crystal clear and floral

Doughnuts, with a touch of powdered sugar

Custard, a Hungarian recipe