When it comes to shortcuts in the kitchen, few things pack as much flavor and save you as much time as flavored syrups can. When your pantry is stocked with different flavored syrups, you can add flavor and sweetness to most any recipe. Here are some time-saving tips to help you make the most of those syrups in your fridge.

Homemade Ice Cream

If you like homemade ice cream but you don't want to have to make custard, add sugar and deal with all of the extracts for flavoring, create a blender ice cream base for a six-quart ice cream machine by mixing together two cups of heavy cream, a cup of half and half and a cup of milk with a few tablespoons of the flavored syrup of your choice. Blend it well until it's a little bit frothy. That air will help you get a creamy ice cream. Pour it into your ice cream machine and let it churn until it's soft-serve consistency, then scoop it out into a container and freeze it.

Flavored Pancakes

Add a tablespoon or two of a flavored syrup to your pancake batter and omit the granulated sugar. The sweetened, flavored syrup will add flavor as well as sweetness to your pancake batter. Consider using a chocolate flavored syrup and stirring strawberries into the batter, or an almond toffee syrup with bananas in your batter. You can create endless combinations of flavors for your pancakes this way without having to stock up on expensive extracts.

Flavored Frosting

When you are making a homemade cake, you can add flavors of all kinds to the frosting when you use flavored syrups. Make a homemade buttercream frosting with three-quarters of a cup of butter, a pound to a pound and a half of confectioner's sugar, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and then a couple of tablespoons of flavored syrup, just enough to make the frosting come together. This is great for a mocha frosting if you replace a third of a cup of confectioners sugar with cocoa powder and use coffee-flavored syrup to add more flavor.

These are three of the things you can use those flavored syrups for, and they will save you a lot of time and money in the kitchen. Look for a local supplier like Monin to find flavored syrups that will fit your cooking habits and your flavor preferences. There are syrups of all kinds, and you may even be able to have a custom flavor mixed.