Elderflower cordial recipe

By Sarah Watson, forager, Wild Feast

© Recipe, blog words and images copyright Wild Feast, all rights reserved

Making your own elderflower cordial is simple and inexpensive, I add lime for extra zing. This cordial can be diluted as a drink, used in cocktails, as a drizzle, or an ingredient for desserts, sorbets and

ice lollies. The citric acid is optional if you’re using your cordial straight away – it extends the life of the
cordial by making it more acidic which helps prevent bacteria growing, and also adds tartness to the
flavour. You can get it from some chemists, home brew shops or online (choose a reputable
company).

Pick your elderflowers on a dry day (the pollen is important for flavour), and leave some flowers to
form fruit for wildlife later, as well as for elderberry recipes. Avoid any blossoms turning brown, and
pick those with the nicest scent. Choose blossoms that look clean, away from busy roads, or anywhere that may have been treated with chemicals.

Makes between 1.5 and 2 litres of cordial

Ingredients

  • 20-30 elderflower heads (unwashed)
  • 1.5 litres water
  • 1 kg sugar
  • 2 lemons, juice and zest
  • 1 lime (or another lemon if you prefer), juice and zest
  • 2 heaped teaspoons food grade citric acid (optional
    – you can add the juice of another lemon or lime for extra tartness instead, if you like )

Method

Shake the elderflowers gently to remove any insects. Use a fork or your fingers to remove the florets
(tiny flowers) from their stems into a large pyrex or ceramic dish (with a lid). Add the citrus zest to the
flowers.

Boil the water and pour it over the elderflowers and zest, cover with a lid and leave to infuse
overnight. Once cooled, it can be left in the fridge like this for up to two days.

Strain the citrus juice through a sieve, lined with a scalded jelly bag or muslin, into a saucepan. Then
strain the elderflower infusion. Add sugar and citric acid to the pan. Bring gradually to a simmer,
stirring to dissolve the sugar. Let it boil gently for a couple of minutes, then skim off any foam.

Funnel the cordial while still hot into warm, sterilised glass bottles, and seal. Alternatively let the
cordial cool, then pour into sterilised bottles leaving some room (at least 10%) in the bottle for
expansion, and freeze.

Once opened, store in the fridge and use within a couple of weeks, or several months if citric acid was
used. Dilute at around one part cordial to five parts water – fizzy or still – or try it mixed with sparkling
wine or cocktails.

Beautiful boozy blackberries

By Sarah Watson

Blackberries-zoomDue to its mix of tart and sweet, blackberry lends cocktails, from gin and vodka to scotch and bourbon, a good sweet and sour balance as well as rich flavour. Here I’ve gathered some of the tastiest cocktail recipes from around the web, using blackberries.

Some of these cocktails use a delicious French-style blackberry liqueur, which can be easily be made at home: Infuse around 250g blackberries with 70cl vodka and 100g sugar for around three months (add some citrus zest if you fancy) shaking occasionally, then strain through a fine sieve, or muslin. You can then filter again if you want a clear liqueur – coffee filters do the job. Add more sugar to taste if required, shake regularly again until the sugar has dissolved, then decant into a sterilised bottle and seal. Your liquor will benefit from maturing for a few more months – if you can wait that long!

October is the tail end of the blackberry season,  but don’t worry if the berries are getting a bit seedy or aren’t very sweet, because sugar is added to the infusion and it’s filtered before drinking. Although if the berries are over-ripe and soggy, mouldy, tasteless, or just don’t taste nice, they’re past it! Alternatively you may have some stashed in the freezer.

The Hedgerow Sling from Absolut Drinks is a sour style of cocktail using sloe and lemon juice along with blackberry liqueur. This cocktail recipes use simple (sugar) syrup which is simple and inexpensive to make at home..here’s how.

Absolut Drinks’ Bramble Mimosa mixes floral and rich berry flavours in a twist on the Kir Royale. Champagne (or you could use sparkling wine) tops up Chambord black raspberry liqueur, blackberry liqueur and elderflower cordial.

This Blackberry Gin Smash is a fruity alternative to traditional G&T, adding fresh blackberries muddled with lime juice. This recipe uses simple (sugar) syrup which is easy and inexpensive to make at home..here’s how.

Discover more about identifying and cooking with wild herbs and flowers on a Wild Feast foraging & cookery course.  Get wild food and drink tips and updates on courses on Facebook and sign up for my e-newsletter for wild food & drink recipes direct to your inbox (option to unsubscribe at any time).

Elderflower – delicate floral cocktail mixer

 



 

 

By Sarah Watson

elderflower-cropresize

To make the most of the wild elder tree’s superb summer blooms while the elderflower season’s in full swing, I’ve gathered the coolest cocktail recipes from around the web using elderflower cordial.

Making your own elderflower cordial is simple and inexpensive, I add lime for extra zing – here’s my elderflower cordial recipe.

Elderflower’s refreshing and gentle floral flavour works well with gin and vodka, but also tequila, white rum, sparkling wine, cider and even beer. It marries well with fruit such as raspberry, strawberry, gooseberry, rhubarb, apple, pear and peach as well as citrus flavours.

From UKTV’s Good Food website, this Gin, apple and elderflower cocktail is a long drink over ice with lime, mint and cloudy apple juice.

strawberry-elderflower-cocktail-all-that-im-eating-1-of-4-2-300x300

This Strawberry mint elderflower and gin cocktail (above) from Caroline Taylor’s blog, All That I’m Eating, is super summery with strawberries, gin and mint leaves, topped up with tonic or soda.

For a refreshing and simple elderflower cocktail, try this elderflower collins  from Absolut, with vodka, soda and lemon juice.

Dreaming of a daiquiri? Try this Elderflower and mint version from UKTV’s Good Food channel, with white rum, freshly squeezed lime juice and mint.

Fancy some fizz? Martha Stewart’s rhubarb elderflower bellini is a sparkling cocktail infused with the tart taste of rhubarb. Or how about this elderflower and lime spritzer  from writer and TV cook, Jo Pratt, with sparkling wine, fresh lime juice and mint leaves.

This Pear and elderflower martini is a vodkatini drink with pear juice from Scottish bartenders, Social and Cocktail.

Last but not least, why not try mixing the exotic La Boheme with elderflower liqueur, vodka, black raspberry liqueur and cranberry?

Discover  more about identifying and cooking with wild herbs and flowers on a Wild Feast forage, cook and eat course.  Get more wild food tips and updates on courses on Facebook and sign up for my e-newsletter for wild food recipes direct to your inbox (option to unsubscribe at any time).

Elderflower – the essence of early summer

By Sarah Watson

The flowers of the elder tree (Sambucus nigra) are one of my favourite edible blossoms. The creamy-white, saucer-shaped blooms have a unique, sweetly fragrant scent with notes of citrus and honey, and a superb, rich, floral flavour. But the elderflower season doesn’t last for long – just a few weeks in late spring to early summer. So make the most of it while you can, taking care not to collect too many flowers from one spot so the tree can fruit later, providing food for wildlife as well as other foragers.

The flower heads are arranged in flat clusters (or umbels) of 10 to 30cm across, each one is made up of tiny florets (small individual flowers) with five petals and five pale-yellow anthers. The leaves of this small tree are formed of two or three pairs of opposite leaflets with serrated edges, ending in a single leaflet. If you crush the leaves, they can smell quite acrid and unpleasant. The young twigs are green, becoming grey as they age – splitting them reveals a soft, white pith. The  grey bark of the trunk is vertically grooved and corky-looking and can often be covered in green algae.

Take care not to confuse elderflower with the similar-looking flowers of the rowan tree (Sorbus aucuparia), the wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium). Or worse, the deadly hemlock (Conium maculatum) or hemlock water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata). Remember you’re looking for a tree, not a non-woody plant – and check the leaves, bark and flowers features carefully.

The best time to pick elderflowers is on a warm, dry day when the blooms are freshly open – as they get older the smell becomes less pleasant, even cat-wee like! Pick the nicest smelling ones, and shake them gently to dislodge any insects.

Elderflowers, and the fruit that follows in late summer to early autumn, small globular glossy purple-black elderberries, have been used in cooking for centuries. However, the stalks and leaves contain toxic cyano-compounds which are denatured by cooking, but they’re not tasty either. So flowers and ripe berries should be stripped away from as much of the green stalk as possible – this can be done with a fork or using your fingers.

Elderberries  shouldn’t be eaten raw either – they also contain the cyanogenic glycosides which can release cyanide, as well as a toxic alkaloid, and a lectin which is a potential hayfever allergen. Ripe berries are safe to eat when cooked as the toxins are made safe by cooking, although that is not necessarily the case for green, unripe elderberries, as stated in this 2014 European Medicines Agency report.

It’s simple to make your own elderflower cordial, I add lime for extra zing – here’s my elderflower cordial recipe, and here are some ideas for using elderflower cordial or liqueur in gorgeous cocktails.

My elderflower fritters, made with a light tempura batter, served with elderflower panna cotta

Elderflower fritters are a lacy, crispy treat: dip elderflowers in a light batter (I use an eggless one), briefly deep-fry, then sprinkle with icing sugar or elderflower cordial and perhaps some citrus juice, or serve with summer fruits or gooseberry compote. Note: it’s easier to leave some of the main flower stalk on for this dish, but as it’s not especially edible, and as the raw stem contains cyanogenic glycosides which break down into cyanide on chewing/digesting, it’s best not to eat it.

Elderflower ‘champagne’ is worth a try too, but watch out for exploding bottles – rather than using glass ones, I prefer reused plastic fizzy drink/sparkling water bottles (sterilised with sterilising tablets and water), or you can buy empty ones online or from wine-making shops. Keep the filled bottles in a cool, dark place keeping them away from anything you don’t want to be potentially sprayed, just in case!

Use elderflower to flavour sorbet, ice lollies, ice cream, custard, panna cotta, cakes, preserves, liqueurs and salad dressings. Nick Hales of St Clements restaurant in St. Leonards-on-Sea suggests pickling Hastings herring fillets in elderflower vinegar – I was sceptical, but I tried it and it works wonderfully!

Always use good identification books to identify your finds to 100% certainty before eating them.

Discover more about identifying and cooking with wild herbs and flowers on a Wild Feast forage, cook and eat course> book here.  Get more wild food tips and updates on courses on Facebook and sign up for my e-newsletter for wild food recipes direct to your inbox (option to unsubscribe at any time).

Golden gorse to lift the spirits

By Sarah Watson

gorsePhoto: Gorse in East Sussex by Ian Cunliffe, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence, via Wikimedia Commons.

Gorse has been bringing striking golden-yellow brightness to the landscape since early January. Native common gorse (Ulex europaeus) is widespread on Sussex heaths, roadsides, railways and fields, flowering mainly from January to June. It’s a large, evergreen shrub covered in sharp, needle-like leaves with yellow coconut-perfumed flowers, the scent being more noticeable on sunny days.

Gorse_flower._(8476622380)Photo: Gorse flower by Ian Kirk, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence,
via Wikimedia Commons.

The flowers of this pea family shrub are edible and impart a distinctive coconutty, floral-vanilla flavour to infusions. The petals can be used as a decorative salad garnish, scattered over cakes, or infused in boiling water to make a tea. Or try crystallising petals with beaten egg white and fine sugar and spreading them out to dry in a warm place (this intensifies the coconut flavour), then sprinkling over ice cream. Ideally a gorse ice cream, made by heating the cream or milk of your recipe with a handful of gorse flowers, then cooling and leaving it overnight in the fridge before straining and using it to make the ice cream.

Coconut_lime_cake-gorse2-adj-resizeAbove: my coconut and lime cake with gorse flower rum frosting, topped with fresh gorse petals.

Gorse flowers are also used in the new breed of artisan British gins such as The Botanist, in winemaking, and to flavour whisky and beer. Try John Wright’s River Cottage Handbook recipe for gorse flower white rum, or infuse a handful in vodka for just a couple of days, before straining and adding sugar to taste. I also make a sunny yellow syrup with lime and orange, which is just gently floral flavoured with a slight hint of coconut and can be used in cocktails or as a drizzle.

The flowers provide pollen for insects, especially on warmer winter days. Luckily picking too many is difficult as the bush is well-protected by sharp spines, so gathering them needs to be a slow, careful process – gloves are recommended, although I find it easier to get a feel for picking the blossoms without them, but caution is needed! Take care not to confuse gorse with the poisonous laburnum tree, which is also in the pea family and has bright yellow flowers, however unlike gorse, the flowers hang down in clusters and the leaves are not sharp and needle-like.

Discover  more about identifying and cooking with wild herbs and flowers on a Wild Feast forage, cook and eat course> book here.  Get more wild food tips and updates on courses on Facebook and sign up for my e-newsletter for wild food recipes direct to your inbox (option to unsubscribe at any time).

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