Rose Milk with Homemade Syrup

My 299th recipe, "Rose Milk with Homemade Syrup", a super simple, fragrant and refreshing summer drink. Rose Milk is a cold, milk based drink which is so aromatic with the addition of rose essence and perfect to quench your thirst during the hot summer days.

It is surely not fair to call this just a summer drink. I would definitely love to have a big tall glass of rose milk on a sultry day. But the honest truth is that, I would never mind laying my hands onto a tall glass of rose milk irrespective of the day of the year it is. Even if it is one of the coldest of cold winter day.

Such is my fondness for rose milk ever since my childhood. The same love continues till date. If at all I see rose milk on a restaurant menu, you can be pretty sure that I would be ordering it. Now-a-days, my sophisticated palate can really appreciate the rich rose flavor emanating from a rose milk. However, while growing up just the pink color was more than sufficient to hook me up to this simple drink.

Whenever I used to go shopping with my mom, I used to force her to buy me a bottle of rose milk syrup from the supermarket. And then very frequently I would ask my mom to make me rose milk to drink. My mom never hesitated since that was an easy way for her to make me drink milk. If it was the other choices like complan or anything else, it would be too hard for my mom to get it down my throat.

Rose Milk, technically is not a very complicated recipe. It is just cold milk which is sweetened with sugar and flavored with rose essence. It is also a quick one to make since you can prepare the rose milk syrup ahead of time and store it in an airtight container. And whenever you need a drink it is just about blending the syrup with cold milk. This can also be one of those recipes perfect for entertaining when you are trying to prepare drink for a large crowd. You will hardly need more than a few mins to make a big batch of this rose milk.

While my mom made rose milk for me quite frequently, it was usually with store bought rose syrups. Since I didn't like the syrups I get here in Indian supermarkets, I had tried a few times in the past to make my own rose milk syrup. I usually go wrong with the consistency of the syrup and the sugar would crystallize right after I leave it for cooling. Most of the recipes available on the web, makes use of lemon extract or citric acid for preventing the crystallization. I however prefer not to add both. This recipe of mine is all about the perfect syrup to make a real good and delicious rose milk 🙂

Rose Milk with Homemade Syrup

Rose Milk with Homemade Syrup

Revathi Palani

Rose Milk is an Indian, cold milk drink which is so aromatic with the addition of rose essence and perfect to quench your thirst during the hot summer days.

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Cook Time 10 mins

Total Time 30 mins

Course Drinks

Cuisine Indian

Servings 15

Ingredients

  

• 2 Cups Sugar
• 2 Cups Water
• Pink food color - as needed
• 2 tsp Rose Essence
• Cold Milk - as needed

Instructions

 

• Add the sugar and water to a heavy bottom pan. Mix well until the sugar is dissolved completely in the water.
  
  
    
• Now, heat the pan in medium flame. Keep stirring the water sugar mixture continuously until it reaches ½ string consistency.
  
  
    
• Now, add the food color to the sugar syrup and stir well until the color is uniformly mixed. Heat for a further 1 min and turn off the flame. Leave the syrup to cool down to room temperature.
  
  
    
• While the syrup is slightly warm, add the rose essence and mix well. Store the rose milk syrup in an air tight container for future use.
  
  
    
• When needing to prepare rose milk, add sufficient quantity of rose syrup to cold milk, as per your taste preference. Mix well. You can also pulse it in a mixer/blender for a couple of seconds to get a nice and frothy rose milk.
  
  
    
• Serve cold.

Notes | FAQ

- It is essential not to over boil the sugar syrup beyond ½ string consistency. Or else the sugar will start to crystallize when the sugar syrup is cooling.

- Citric acid or lemon extract might be used to prevent the sugar from re-crystallizing. I do not prefer adding those. You should be perfectly fine even though there is a small amount of crystallization.

- ½ string consistency: When you take the syrup between 2 of your fingers and stretch, you should get a thin discontinuous string.

- Rose essence is different from rose water. Rose water is not edible and used in cosmetics. Choose carefully.