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You don’t have to head to the pharmacy at every scratchy throat, instead an equally effective remedy can be made at home.
Making homemade cough lozenges isn’t difficult.
You won’t need any hard-to-find or expensive ingredients. You only need suitable herbs (from your own harvest or the pharmacy), sugar and lemon juice. The result rivals store-bought cough lozenges in taste and effect, and often works even better.
So how do you do it?
Recipe
To start, be prepared to spend about 40 minutes in the kitchen and about half of that time you won’t be able to leave the stove because you need to stir the mixture thoroughly.
you need:
• 1 cup white sugar (you can also use cane sugar)
• herbs for cough, a tablespoon of each type – preferably thyme, coltsfoot, sage
• half a teaspoon of ground cloves
• half a teaspoon of ground anise
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
First, prepare the herbal decoction . Put all the herbs into about half a liter of water and simmer under a lid for approximately a quarter of an hour. You don’t have to strictly stick to those listed; feel free to use your favorites. However, make sure they act against cough or at least have antibacterial properties.
Once the decoction is ready, strain it and add the sugar. Cook over low heat until the mixture thickens sufficiently and reaches the so-called string stage. At this phase add the cloves and anise and finally slightly dilute everything with lemon juice.
Now take a large baking sheet, tray or another suitable surface and cover it with baking paper. From the heated mass quickly form small candies and let them dry on the paper. Ideally remove them after twelve hours, however if your troubles are acute, feel free to suck them earlier.
Store the lozenges in a suitable container. Beforehand we recommend tossing them with powdered sugar. It doesn’t have to be a thick layer. Just enough so the lozenges don’t stick together. Use as needed, about 6-8 pcs per day.
Our tips for homemade preparation
You can also find recipes online that replace the sugar with honey. However, the high temperature destroys some of the beneficial substances in honey and the taste result is very similar. You can, however, use at least cane sugar or another healthy alternative.
And if you want your cough candies to be perfect, buy special silicone molds in shops. Then you will practically not be able to tell yours from purchased products and you can use them, for example, as a nice gift. In a well-sealed container such lozenges will also keep for several months without problems.
