Fragrant delight – elderflower cordial

Last year on my cycle commute to work I vowed I would pick some of the elderflowers that I saw in bloom in Whitlingham country park to make cordial.

But I never got round to it.

Fast forward to this week – I realised we had elderflowers in our garden only they were pink!

Somehow I hadn’t registered that I could use them as well.

The next thing was getting my hands on some citric acid.

The local chemist took great relish in telling me they would only be able to sell it 50g at a time.

Apparently this is to stop heroin abuse as it is used to dissolve the drug!

I did point out it’s easily accessible in large quantities via the internet.

Anyway I finally found some at the local pharmacy in a nearby large supermarket – with no limits on how much I could buy!

From the various books and web pages I read it seems you should only pick newly opened elderflowers from an unpolluted source  – not from a busy roadside for example.

You should shake the flowers to rid them of any insects that may be lingering.

But if there are any you’ve missed – the muslin that you pass it through before bottling will catch them and sieve them out.

I followed this recipe from the BBC food website as it seemed as good as any other.

Even though I’ve sterilised the bottles – I’m still going to keep them in the fridge.

The cordial has got the thumbs up from others – my Mum, Jan, says it’s a very pleasant, unusual and refreshing.

Many people say it has a muscat flavour.

After passing the cordial through a muslin lined sieve we tied up the material and used the remnant fruit and flower heads to make Gooseberry and Elderflower jam with the last 2kgs of frozen fruit from last summer.

You can make elderflower wine or champagne – I might try that next year.