Sparkle Kitchen: Honey Ginger Cough Drops
In this week's Martin & Sylvia's Nature School story, “Nature Medicine,” when Martin wakes with some ominous cold symptoms, his instinctive response is to tell everyone, “I feel fine.” He adores his weekly time at Goose-Eye Wilderness School and doesn't want to miss it. But then, during wilderness school that day, Eva teaches a little lesson on how the elders of old used to discover wisdom in the natural world, and Martin begins to receive some wisdom of his own.
When I was Martin's age and went to visit my grandmother's house with a scratchy throat, her favorite “remedy” was a spoon full of honey. I have vivid memories of waking in the middle of the night with her standing by my bed in the lamplight, squeezing the golden liquid onto a silver teaspoon and encouraging me to swallow the whole thing down.
This week's recipe turns that natural remedy into a more portable form — a honey cough drop.
While you could flavor these cough drops with anything you wanted, ginger, cloves, and lemon are three additions that will further help soothe a sore throat. If you've never made candy before, this is an easy recipe to start with, just make sure you have all the tools you'll need close by before you begin. Also, mind the mixture especially carefully right at the end—the honey can burn quickly at such high heat.
Kept at room temperature, these cough drops last indefinitely. (If they start to look sticky, just re-dust them with powdered sugar or cornstarch.) Make up a batch now so you'll have them ready the next time someone in your family wakes up with a scratchy throat.
Honey Ginger Cough Drops
Ingredients
½ cup honey
¼ cup water
½ teaspoon ground ginger
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons lemon juice
powdered sugar or cornstarch (for dusting the finished cough drops)
Directions
Once these cough drop ingredients start to boil, you won't be able to step away, so get your tools close at hand before you begin. You'll need a candy thermometer, a whisk, a glass of ice water, and a baking sheet covered with oiled parchment paper.
Once that's all ready, mix together all of the ingredients (except the powdered sugar or cornstarch) in a saucepan that feels larger than you need. Set the pan over medium high heat and whisk continuously, monitoring the temperature with your candy thermometer. The mixture will foam up, but just keep whisking.
When the candy thermometer reaches 300 degrees, remove the pan from the heat. Carefully use the whisk to dribble a few drops of the mixture into the glass of ice water. Fish out the drops and try them—if the cough drops “crunch” they're done, if they're still chewy return the pan to the heat for another minute and test again.
Once your drops pass the ice water test (this is called reaching “hard-cracked” stage in candy-making parlance), let the mixture cool for about 30 seconds, then use a small spoon to ladle it out into little drops on the parchment covered bake sheet.
Allow the cough drops to harden and cool for about 10 minutes, then dust them lightly with powdered sugar or cornstarch. Store them in an airtight container at room temperature.
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About the Author
Meryl Carver-Allmond
The Sparkle Kitchen Series is created by Meryl Carver-Allmond.
Meryl lives in a hundred-year-old house near the prairie with her sweet husband, two preschoolers, one puppy, one gecko, and about ten chickens. While she's been writing since she could pick up a pen, in recent years she's discovered the joy of photography, too. She feels lucky to be able to combine those skills, along with a third passion — showing people that cooking for themselves can be healthy and fun — in her Sparkle Kitchen posts.
