Monday 8 July 2013

Adventures in Foraging: Elderflower Cordial...

I mentioned in a previous post that I had been out and about collecting elderflowers. I LOVE elderflower cordial, in a big way. I love it's delicate summery and lemony flavour, I just can't get enough of it. It's like my secret squash just for Mummy. Plus those who know me know that I love a good forage, it gives me great pleasure to make something lovely from anything fresh, local and free! 

So here is my elderflower cordial recipe. First of all, find a tree with lots of beautiful fresh elderflowers. Make sure it's away from any roads and try to pick your flowers on a nice warm day when the blossom is open. Give the blossom a little shake just to make sure there are no little bugs hanging around. 

You will need approximately twenty large heads, with no brown flowers. 


Once home remove the flowers from their stems with a fork. There is a very small amount of a  cyanide-like compound within the stems, so best to chuck those! The flowers come off easily. You should be left with a lovely big bowl full of flowers which look a little like this.  


The remaining stems look like this. You don't need to be horrendously accurate and remove every single flower. They smell amazing! 



In a large, deep, clean pan dissolve 1kg of big standard white sugar into 1.5 litres of boiling water. Swish it around until its all gone. Then add 55g of citric acid and dissolve that too. 

Add your elderflowers and four lemons all chopped up. Then cover and leave it alone for 48 hours. Yeeps!! The elderflowers will steep, the lemons will release their natural oils and your kitchen will smell fantastic.


After 48 hours have passed strain the mixture through a sterilised muslin. Then do it again to make sure you have a lovely pale yellow liquid. Pour into sterilised bottles and store it somewhere dark and cool. It should keep for about three months. 


Enjoy diluted as an alternative to squash, add to lemonade or sparking water. Try it in gin and tonic for an unusual and refreshing twist. You can also drizzle it onto cake, add to gooseberry fool or pour it onto fresh fruit salad to make it summery. You can make fantastic ice lollies with it or even try it hot. Apparently it's beneficial for treating colds and flu!

Personally I like to take bottles to summer BBQ's as a gift for the host. It makes a nice change from a bottle of plonk and if you've made it yourself you feel like it's a bit special!

Have you ever made elderflower cordial? Do you have any other uses for it? 

To me it's like summer in a bottle. I've got to go and have some now, I've worked up a hankering for it now I've been talking about it so much!! If you're in the UK there's still time to get out there and snaffle yourself some flowers! 

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16 comments:

  1. Being the uncreative so and so that I am, I didn't know things as yummy as this could just be made willy nilly!! I bet its so refreshing :)

    Walkingtalkingpollypocket.blogspot.com

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    1. They can indeed! It's very much worth doing, it's delicious!! :)

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  2. We have an elderflower tree in our garden, and I've never got round to using the berries or flowers, but I'm going to do this!

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    1. Oh Caz, you must! It's so versatile! You can freeze it too to keep it for longer, plus it makes a lovely sorbet! :)

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  3. Godammit. You bloggers are tormenting me with your elderflower recipes. We attempted to make elderflower champagne but it went all mouldy. Bah humbug! Blimey, didn't know about the cyanide content. Eeek! xx

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    1. Hahaha! Sorry lovely! What a shame about your champagne! It sounds delicious :) I've never been brave enough to try wine making, I live in fear of it exploding!

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  4. Amazing! We do something similar with lavendar and it goes straight on the ice cream, every day, til it's gone. I just went out with some ladies (a real ladies night, which was my first one in 2 years by the way woohoo!) and had this cocktail called a St. Citrine that included elderberry liquor, champagne, probably gin who knows, and grapefruit juice. It was the most delicious thing ever! So much that I was going to scrounge up the recipe and put on my blog sometime soon! If/when I do I'll be sure to link back to this post as well. Because we are clearly soulmates, elderberry obsession and all :) xo!

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    1. That sounds amazing! I'd LOVE your lavender recipe....pretty please? Not to mention the cocktail recipe, I LOVE a cocktail!

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  5. Looks so yummy! Never tried it before but I may have to start being nosey at people's gardens for elderflowers now! x

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    1. Thank you :) I am a bit obsessed with looking for trees now! I find myself driving along the road pointing them out to the girls! Like they're interested!!! :) xx

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  6. What?! I'd been beating myself up because Hugh fearnley whatnot said I'd missed the elderflower season! Is that not so? Is there still time?!

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    1. There is!! If your tree faces the right direction there are still flowers out there to be had! You'll have to be quick mind! To the forest my friend, with haste!! :)

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  7. I need to do this; am addicted to elderflower cordial.

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    1. Do try it Alexis! The flavour is amazing! Let me know how you get on....:) xx

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  8. I want some!!! Now I have to figure out if elderflowers grow out here...

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  9. If they don't I have a lovely strawberry vodka recipe that's universally YUMMERS!! :) x

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