Fresh lemonade is made from fresh squeezed lemons and simple syrup. It's important to use simple syrup and not just sugar. This is for a few reasons, one is that it just tastes better, but more importantly, simple syrup is boiled and is sterile. The lemonade will stay fresh longer.
You need:
- 1 cup lemon juice (about 5 lemons)
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 1/2 cups water (for simple sugar)
- 6 cups water (for the lemonade)
First make a simple syrup. Simple syrup is made by boiling roughly equal parts water and white sugar. For this recipe, I used 1 1/2 cups of water and 1 cup of white sugar. Bring it to boil in a saucepan. It is done as soon as it boils. Let it cool, of course.
Squeeze the juice, about 5 lemons makes about 1 cup of lemon juice.
Now mix 1 cup of the simple syrup and 1 cup of lemon juice in a pitcher. This is now concentrated lemonade. It can be stored for a few days in the refrigerator or better yet frozen.
Take this base of juice and syrup and mix with about 6 cups of fresh water, or more or less to taste. Now you have fresh homemade lemonade!
