We recently ran out of syrup at my house, which is disappointing when you’re about to bite into a delicious homemade waffle. Thankfully I found a recipe in an old cookbook I had. I adapted it and thought I would share it with you in the event of a syrup emergency at your house. 
An easy recipe from ThePeacefulMom.com!
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 cup butter (optional but makes it yummy!)
Instructions
- Place water, sugar and vanilla in a medium size pan over medium high heat.
- Slowly bring to a boil.
- Stir constantly until sugar is completely dissolved.
- Add butter and stir until melted.
- Serve warm or refrigerate in a glass jar.
Notes
For a family size serving:
3 cups brown sugar; 1 1/2 cups water; 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla; 1/2 cup butter
*This syrup has a runny consistency but does thicken a little when refrigerated. I haven't tried it, but you could probably use sucanat (a natural sweetener) instead of the sugar.
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http://thepeacefulmom.com/2012/05/02/easy-diy-waffle-syrup/
I’m linking up at Tasty Tuesday and Gluten Free Wednesdays!
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
We make this without the butter. It is all we use unless we can splurge on the real stuff. Instead of vanilla, we use Mapeleine or maple flavoring.
Yes, maple syrup is delicious, but very expensive.
We use a maple extract that isn’t any more expensive than vanilla extract. It just came from the spice aisle at the grocery store.
Also, the recipe I use calls for a bit more cooking time, which thickens it up as you cook out some of the water. It has about the same consistency as storebought syrup and is super yummy.
Thanks for the idea about cooking it longer. I’ll have to try the maple extract, vanilla was what we had on hand.
My mom made something similar when I was a kid and my parents were raising 4 teenagers in a 3-bedroom apartment and a very limited income.
I don’t remember the exact proportions, but I remember that it used equal amounts of white sugar and brown sugar. She put the sugar in one of those 1-quart glass measuring cups with some maple extract and filled to the top with water and stuck the whole thing in the microwave (hence putting it in the glass container). The glass measuring cup also allowed her to measure, mix, cook, and serve/pour the syrup all in one “dish”.
Love the efficiency of that Sarah!
We’ve always made our syrup: 2 cups sugar, 1 cup boiling water, 1 teaspoon maple flavoring. I make it on the stove while I make the pancakes or waffles so it is always hot. I put leftovers in a canning jar so it can reheat in the microwave. This is my mother’s recipe – maybe from the Depression?
You can also substitute honey for some of the sugar…and use a half maple flavoring/half vanilla extract mixture.
I have been doing this with palm sugar (lower glycemic) and the boys love it! I use 2 cups sugar, 1 cup water and 1-2 tsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder. Bring to a boil for 1 minute stirring constantly and then cool. I have seen the maple extract in another recipe but palm sugar gives it a carmelly flavor so nothing else is needed. So awesome! We were fortunate to find a bulk supplier of this sugar so we could keep the cost way down. Love maple syrup (Canandian) but just to rich for us right now.
I’ve never heard of palm sugar. Where do you get it?
Palm sugar is commonly used in southeast Asian cuisine. My mom is Indonesian, so it was a staple in our household. It’s a really rich brown-colored sugar that’s available in most Asian markets. I’ve seen it on Amazon/health food grocers in granule form, but my mom always bought it in bricks so that’s what I use. Hope that helps
Oh, and if you’re ever out looking for it, keep in mind the name “Gula Jawa” which is the Indonesian name it’s commonly found by. Rough translation is Javanese Sugar 
Thanks LC!
I’m going to make this when my current bottle of Log Cabin runs out….we LOVE the real stuff, but it is too costly,and it disappears too quickly! LC had no HFCS in it…but making it myself is even cheaper! (one ds basically drinks the stuff)
Cheaper is better, right?
I have gotten in the past from our heath food store. Is actually the dried nectar of the flowers on coconut trees. Check it out sometime it can be very expensive but i have noticed it in some chain stores in the bulk section for quite a bit less lately. We have a local company that sells bulk foods at a wholesale price once a year and we were able to stock and I am so glad i did.
We do this from time to time but wihout the butter. Dh really likes it!
I’m just finding this now and all the recipes sound delish! I have never made my own syrup, so I have a question….if you make your own syrup, does it have to be refrigerated?
Thank you!
We do refrigerate ours because we put butter in it, but it may be okay to leave it out if you only use sugar and vanilla.
Thank you!! You saved our breakfast this morning
It was delicious! I do want to try with the maple flavor, but this was very good!!
Yay! So glad you liked it.
I have made homemade syrup with the sugar, water boiling to flavor I used fruit that we had in the house. For example blueberries or strawberries cut up added to boiling syrup it was yummy! My kids love it.
Yum–thanks for the idea Sam!
Thank you for saving our breakfast today! Does this store long ion the refridgerator?
Haha! Glad I could help.
Ours never lasts longer than two weeks, so I can’t give you an official answer. If you don’t add butter to it I would think that it would last quite a while.
Thank you for replying to my comment today and so fast. You should really be proud of your site it really is good. I will be use alot know that I know it is here. Again thank you. Kay C
Thanks Kay!
I’m a big extract collector and grab it whenever it’s on sale. We use it in smoothies, shakes, pancakes, breads, cakes, sugar cookies… etc. It can change a vanilla shake into an orange one, or a rootbeer float flavor! Anyway.. I make this syrup recipe too… and I use either maple or vanilla usually, but when I have it on hand – I use the butter pecan. So yummy! Oh, and I’ve put orange zest in my pancake batter before and used orange extract in the syrup… also amazing..
Thanks Denise–I love the butter pecan idea!