I bought Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home—the cookbook from Ohio-based ice cream maven Jeni Britton Bauer—back in June, and I've been using it as inspiration all summer. I haven't yet tried any of her more unusual flavors, like Sweet Basil & Honeyed Pine Nut or Cucumber, Honeydew, & Cayenne, but I've followed her very simple yet fullproof recipe to make fruit syrups that I've then swirled into ice creams and used as the base for homemade sodas.
I first made Jeni's Blackberry Syrup by boiling two parts berries to one part sugar and forcing the resulting mixture through a strainer after it had cooled a bit. After it was chilled, I layered it into my homemade vanilla ice cream to create Vanilla Ice Cream With Blackberry Swirl. On a whim, I poured the little syrup I had left into a glass and added club soda. It was awesome, so I bought a whole lot of blackberries at the Greenmarket the next weekend and made a big batch of syrup for soda.
I then went on to make peach and raspberry syrups and to try creating peppermint and lemon verbena syrups. The peach was my favorite. It was delicious in soda ...
