EAT | Crazy Cool Lemonades!

Hey guys, if your kids are anything like mine, water is boring. Today I'm going to show you how to make a simple lemonade and then two very special flavors that are sure to put a smile on any kid's face. Alright, so let's start with a simple lemonade recipe that you'll use for all three varieties and for that you're going to need five medium sized lemons, half a cup of sugar, half a cup of water, and then four more cups of water. The first thing that we need to do is make a simple syrup. This is something that used to intimidate me, but in reality it's literally just melting sugar into water so that you don't have a grainy texture in your lemonade and we're going to do that on the stove. In a small saucepan, add equal parts sugar and water and heat that over medium heat, stirring until it dissolves and it usually takes about a minute. Alright, our simple syrup is cooling, we just need to juice our lemons. Now you can use a handheld juicer if you want. I have this one from the drugstore, it was like $10, I got it 20 years ago, it still works and I love it. So we're just going to use that today, I'm going to juice my lemons, I've cut them in half. Alright, you're looking for about a cup of lemon juice, I actually only needed four lemons today, very juicy. And then you're going to pour it all together, right? So I've got my water in here, if I were making this just for myself I would start with the lemon juice simple syrup and then add the water, but I didn't want to have to go back to the sink for you guys. So I'm going to pour my lemon juice into the pitcher, it kind of looks pretty this way anyway. And then I've got my simple syrup, and that all goes right in, and then all you need to do is give it a good stir. Now just put this in your refrigerator to cool, or if you're impatient you can actually instead of using four cups of water, just use three and then fill a cup with ice and pour it over. It will dilute the lemonade as the ice melts. Alright, the first special variety we're going to make is mermaid lemonade, and your kids are going to love the magic color changing effects of this one. It's actually pretty easy to make, though it did take me a fair amount of experimentation to get it right. So I was hoping I could just make ice with food coloring and that would do the magic trick, so it like has promise, and the actual ice looks cool in here, but honestly it was pretty underwhelming. Next up I tried using butterfly tea powder to make ice, the moment of truth, and putting those ice cubes in the lemonade, and that was definitely cooler but still kind of unimpressive. And finally after a little bit more work, I landed on the perfect way. We did it! That is way cooler. Okay, so this does boil down to having the butterfly tea powder. You can get this in the flower form and make your own tea. This is the powder form which makes it exceptionally easy, and I happen to have some on hand from a food science experiment I did. So what I'm going to do is make some ice with this. I've got some hot water here, and to it I'm going to add just a tiny bit of this powder and stir it around. I've got my ice cube tray, and what I'm going to do is pour a little bit in here at a time and then add more matcha powder as I go, so that I get almost an ombre effect. So I'm just going to stir it as best I can, and then I'll pour a few in here. It looks so cool. I love this. Okay, I'm going to grab a little bit more matcha and mix it in here, and then continue pouring. You can see the sky got a little darker. All right, I've got some ice cubes already ready, and you can see the kind of beautiful colors that they have, and I also have a food processor, or you could use a blender. I'm going to take, I don't know, maybe three to four of these and pick kind of different ombres of them, different shades, and put them right into my food processor, and then just get this chopping. You want to have chunks that are kind of crushed ice and then a few bigger chunks so that things melt at different times. It gives a better color change. Okay, now that the ice is ready, I'm going to do something extra special with our glass. I'm going to use a lemon to just kind of get it a little bit juicy, and then I've got sanding sugar in two mermaid-type flavors, blue and purple. I'm going to pour them into this little bowl, and then just rim my glass. Oh my God, this looks so fun. Very pretty. Okay, next, we are going to add some crushed ice. I'm just using mine from my Nugget ice maker. If you guys just have regular ice, you can put it in a bag and chop it, or you can chop it in a food processor. Similarly, get this going a little faster, pour it in. I'll probably make a little bit of a mess. So once you've got a little crushed ice in there, add some of your lemonade to the bottom, and then you're going to add more crushed ice because you want a layer that's kind of not touching either the lemonade or your magic ice. Okay, and now for our magic ice, and again, you want some cubes that are a little bit bigger, and then some really great crushed up stuff because that will melt at a different rate and kind of give you those different color packets. Now pour a little bit more lemonade right over the top, so you guys can see that right between the lemonade and the blue, the purple is starting to form. How cool is that? Pretty sure your kids are going to love this. Hashtag best lemonade ever. For our final variety, we're making a raspberry mint sparkler. You can doctor your entire pitcher if you want, but today I'm just going to make an individual portion. So I've got a mason jar. To that I'm going to add some very beautiful looking raspberries right to the bottom, and you can make this to taste. Then I've got some fresh mint leaves, which Ryder picked for me from his garden, and I'm going to put those in there. Again, you can leave them out, add more or less depending on your taste. All you need to do is muddle it, which is a fancy word for mushing things up. I'm just going to do that right in the glass. It smells so good already. All right, this is looking really pretty. All that's left to do is add our liquid. So I've got my lemonade, and I'll pour that in there. Hopefully it won't spill, and it looks so pretty. And then I'm going to leave just a little bit of room for some sparkling water. You can use lime sparkling water if you want a little more flavor, but I'm just using a simple one today. Add some bubble, and this is ready for the kids to enjoy. These lemonades are as fun and colorful as they are refreshing and delicious. All right, guys, next time your kids tell you that water is boring, you know what to serve them. Thank you so much for watching. Let me know in the comments below what you'd like to see more of, and I'll see you next time. Bye, guys.