Italian Cream Soda Bar - Handmade in the Heartland

Last weekend Matt and I were in charge of doing the desserts at the spring ball for the youth at our church. It was a fun project to work on and I was excited when I heard that an Italian soda bar had been requested. When I looked into doing the soda bar I realized that purchasing premium syrups was outside of our budget so I decided to make them myself. To make these sodas over the top delicious you add a splash of AE Heavy Whipping Cream at the end. Seriously deeeelicious, I might have tried out multiple different combinations for taste testing. 😉

I knew I wanted to keep it to fruit flavors that could be mixed to create really great combinations. Coconut was a must- it tastes great with everything- and at the ball it turned out that strawberry was the biggest hit. If I did it again I would probably replace the lime with something else, even though you add so much sugar to make the syrup it was still really bitter. Here are some step by step pictures of how to make your Italian Cream Soda.

Making Italian Cream Soda

Step 1. Fill your cup 1/2 way with ice

Step 2. Add your syrup- we suggested 4 pumps of any combination for our 9 ounce cups.

Step 3: Fill with Club Soda

Step 4: Top off with AE Heavy Whipping Cream, for the ball we put the cream in the same bottles the syrups were in and suggested everyone add a pump or 2 of cream. We made sure to have the cream bottles sitting in ice to keep them nice and chilled.

Step 5: Stir and Enjoy! Make sure to have fun straws to go with your soda bar- for stirring and sipping!

Italian Cream Soda Bar

by Handmade in the Heartland

Ingredients

For the Orange

3 cups sugar
3 cups orange juice (not from concentrate)

For the Pineapple

3 cups sugar
3 cups pineapple juice

For the Lime

3 cups sugar
1 cup lime juice
2 cups water

For the Coconut

3 cups sugar
3 cups water
1 bag shredded sweetened coconut

For the Strawberry

3 cups sugar
3 cups water
1 pint strawberries, hulled & chopped

For Assembly

1 Quart AE Heavy Whipping Cream
Club Soda
Ice

Instructions

For each syrup you will combine the ingredients in a saucepan and place them over medium to high heat. Bring the mixture to a simmer and stir until the sugar is dissolved, no more than 5-10 minutes.
For the orange, lime & pineapple where the only ingredients are the liquid and sugar you will let the syrup cool and then place into your bottles. For the strawberry & coconut you’ll let the syrup completely cool and then run the syrup through a fine mesh sieve to filter out all the solids.
To assemble your sodas use 9 ounce cups and fill halfway with ice, add 2-4 pumps of syrups of your choice then fill with club soda. Finish off with 1-2 pumps of AE Heavy Whipping Cream. Stir and Enjoy!

*These amounts are for a 32 ounce bottle, you may have a little extra but it should be just enough to fill the entire bottle. The basic recipe is 3 cups of water (or liquid) to 3 cups of sugar, you can change the flavor by switching up the liquid to different juices, or just adding different fruit. I purchased the 32oz Bottles

on Amazon in a pack of 6, because I was doing it for such a large group I did 2 of each- so I ordered 12 bottles. (and doubled the recipes above) You can see the bottles HERE

, They don’t come with pumps so I had to buy them separately, also on Amazon. You can see them HERE

. Even with purchasing the bottles and pumps it was still much cheaper than purchasing pre-made syrups.

I love AE Dairy and their ridiculously good products, the Heavy Whipping Cream happens to be one of my favorites. I talk about how it makes the best whipped cream in the world in THIS post. Be sure to follow AE on Facebook, Pinterest & YouTube.

Here are two pictures from the actual event last Saturday. The kids loved the soda bar and creating fun combinations. Here are a few of my favorite combos:

Orange Creamsicle- 4 pumps orange + 2 pumps cream

Pina Colada-2 pumps pineapple + 2 pumps coconut + 1 pump cream

Strawberry Colada- 2 pumps strawberry + 1 pump coconut + 1 pineapple + 1 cream

I designed the syrup labels and just printed them out on card stock on my home printer, easy!

You can download them HERE, HERE, & HERE.

If you make an Italian Soda Bar please let me know! I love to see it when you make things from the blog! Share it with me in the comments or tag me on Instagram (@handmadeintheheartland) or facebook! Want to save this for later? Pin the image below!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of AE Dairy. The opinions and text are all mine.