The heady floral fragrance of elderflower is one of the highlights of early summer, as throughout late May and early June the creamy white blossoms grace hedgerows and footpaths. This glorious elderflower cordial is so easy to make, and will add a beautiful floral note to your recipes.
Serve with sparkling water and ice on a hot day, use as a base for a cracking cocktail or add to Sussex sparkling wine for a special lunch in the garden. Mixed with icing sugar it tastes delicious as a frosting on cakes and biscuits, or spoon over a warm lemon drizzle cake for extra flavour; it can also be added to jams and jellies, poured over ice cream or even whipped into cream for a summery Pavlova.
Ingredients
- 25 elderflower heads
- 1 kg granulated white sugar
- 1.5 l water
- 3 unwaxed oranges, roughly chopped
- 2 unwaxed lemons, roughly chopped
- 50 g citric acid
Method
- Pick the elderflowers on a sunny morning, after the dew has evaporated (and as with all foraging, make sure they are not harvested from any areas where there is either heavy traffic pollution or the danger they could have been, er, polluted by dogs!).
- Don’t wash the heads, just give them a vigorous shake to remove any bugs; I often leave the blossom spread out on a tea towel for half an hour just to let the little blighters escape. Cut off the thick stem as close as possible to the flowers, as it can make the syrup bitter.
- Tip the sugar into a large ceramic bowl then pour over 1.5 l of boiling water and stir so the sugar starts to dissolve.
- Allow to cool, then add the chopped fruit, citric acid and flower heads. Give everything a final stir then cover with a clean tea towel.
- Steep the mixture for 48 hours, stirring occasionally, before straining through a sieve lined scalded muslin. Pour into sterilised bottles and store in the fridge where it will keep for a good six weeks.
- If you are making a large batch, it can be poured into sterilised plastic containers and frozen so you have a supply all summer; we always freeze some in ice cube trays to pop in cold drinks (most notably gin and tonic!)
You can find out more about Becci at: Hygge Style
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