Pink Lemon & Pink Grapefruit Lemonade

A few days ago the girls and I were in Trader Joe's and we came across pink lemons. The girls were pretty excited at the prospect of pink lemons, especially Lola who is a little obsessed with the color pink, so I just knew that we had to give them a try. Seeing as it was pretty warm over the weekend we decided to use our pink lemons to make pink lemonade.

Now, as you'll see in the photos, pink lemons aren't actually all that pink. In fact, the skin is variegated yellow and green, which is rather pretty, but it's not pink. The pink color can be found in the lemon's flesh, and even then it's more of a slight rosy hue rather than pink. Admittedly, the juice doesn't end up looking all that different to the juice of a regular lemon. Pink lemons taste a little sweeter than regular lemons, although judging by Mathilde's reaction to tasting one, they're still quite sour!

Most pink lemonades are colored with the addition of a red juice (often cranberry) or by muddling berries into the mix. I wanted to keep our lemonade citrus based so we went for a slightly different approach and added pink grapefruit. This resulted in a rosy colored syrup, but by the time it was diluted with extra water it looked like regular lemonade. Oh, but it tasted so much better! We also added berries as a finishing touch because berries make everything better.

Here's the recipe that we used to make our lemonade...

What you'll need
3 Pink Lemons
1 Pink Grapefruit
1 3/4 Cups sugar
1 Cup Water
Additional water for serving
Berries for garnish (optional)

First up you'll need to make sugar syrup to sweeten the lemonade. This is pretty easy but young kids will need assistance as it is made on the stove and the syrup can cause nasty burns if you're not careful with it while it's hot.

Pour the sugar into a pan.

Add one cup of water.

Turn on the heat to a low/medium setting and stir occasionally until the sugar has dissolved.

Pour the sugar syrup into a jug and set aside in the fridge to cool.

Now it's time to squeeze the lemons and grapefruit. Be prepared to use a little elbow grease!

We got about one and a half cups of juice out of three pink lemons and one pink grapefruit. If your fruit isn't especially juicy you may need to juice an extra lemon or two. One and a half cups of juice is pretty much the perfect balance to the sugar syrup. 

Using a strainer to catch the seeds and larger pieces of pulp, pour the lemon and grapefruit juice into the jug of sugar syrup. Give it a stir and put it back in the fridge to cool a little longer if needed.

There are two ways you can go from here. If you have a few large jugs and plenty of fridge space, you can mix the lemon and sugar syrup with seven cups of water for ready to drink lemonade. If, like us, you have limited space and no large jugs on hand, you can use the lemon and sugar syrup as a lemonade cordial and add it to water one glass at a time.

Using the syrup as a lemonade cordial is also a great choice if some of your family like it a little stronger than others. If it's not strong enough, add a little more syrup to your glass. Too strong, add a little more water.

We found that adding about an inch of the lemonade cordial to the bottom of a glass was about right. Make sure to give it a little shake first before pouring as it may settle in the fridge.

Top it up with water, add a couple of raspberries or maybe even a few mints leaves, and you're good to go.

Mmm... delicious!

This lemonade is so tasty I'm sure we'll be making it quite a bit over the Summer. Maybe we'll even have another lemonade stand. The girls have been asking to have a lemonade stand in the park again for quite some time.

Do you make your own lemonade? Do you add anything special to it? I love the idea of making flavored lemonade with seasonal fruits.