Recipe information
Yield
Makes 1 2/3 cups
Ingredients
4 ounces (about 4 cups) dried hibiscus flowers (flor de Jamaica)
2 cups sugar
8 cups water
Preparation
Step 1
Combine the hibiscus flowers, sugar, and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the syrup coats the back of a spoon.
Step 2
Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, and pour the liquid back into the pot. Bring to a boil and simmer over medium-low heat until the liquid is reduced to the consistency of a thick syrup, about 20 minutes. Cool to room temperature and store refrigerated in a glass or plastic container.
Reprinted with permission from The New Taste of Chocolate by Maricel Presilla, © 2009 Ten Speed Press
Maricel Presilla is a culinary historian specializing in the foods of Latin America and Spain. She holds a doctorate in medieval Spanish history from New York University and has received formal training in cultural anthropology.
Dr. Presilla has done considerable research on Latin American agriculture—with special emphasis on tropical crops, cacao and vanilla agriculture, and chocolate production. She is the president of Gran Cacao Company a Latin American food research and marketing company that specializes in the sale of premium cacao beans from Latin America.
She has completed a comprehensive Latin American cookbook for W.W. Norton and has contributed articles for Saveur, Food & Wine, Food Arts, and Gourmet.
She writes a weekly food column for the Miami Herald and is as comfortable sailing down the Orinoco to collect recipes in the field as she is cooking at Zafraand Cucharamama, her pan-Latin restaurants in Hoboken, New Jersey. Last year she opened Ultramarinos, a Latin American store and cooking atelier, also in Hoboken, NJ, where she sells Latin ingredients, prepared foods, premium chocolates and Blue Cacao, her own line of truffles with Latin flavors.
