I've been making elderflower cordial in June for many years, ever since I moved house to this house where elder trees grow freely all around the neighbourhood. The frothy cream flowers are so distinctive that once you start looking for them you see them absolutely everywhere - roadsides, car parks, alleyways, train tracks, hedgerows, parks.
A few years ago we discovered a whole delicious run of elder trees growing in a part of the park that remains quite wild, where the grass grows tall and the hedgerows are left to billow naturally. As you can see in the above photo the flowers grow in abundance here, and crucially the elders are still in their young shrubby years of development (I think of them as unruly teenagers). What this means is that the flowers are at the perfect height for picking, which is like fragrant gold dust for the annual Cordial Maker (ie, me).
My two boys both absolutely LOVE elderflower cordial, especially as they were raised in a water-or-nothing household where shop bought cordials or juices are a treat for special occasions. As a result, they both have a very invested interest in my annual cordial making ritual and as soon as we enter the month of June, they are both scanning the neighbourhood trees and discussing the state of readiness.
In years gone by I often had all three Little People with me for these floral gathering expeditions, but in more recent times it has just been me and Little B. Now keep in mind that Little B is no longer little, not at all, he is a tall, mature, fully hormonal teenager. And now picture him eager to come on this very special outing with his Mum, awwww, it really is the sweetest thing. He snips and gathers while I prance about taking photographs of the snipping and gathering, we have it all worked out between us.
We always go gathering on a sunny evening after a dry spell, to make sure the flowers are laden with fragrant pollen. I leave the bag outside overnight to allow any little critters to climb out and re-home themselves, then the following morning I set about snipping as much of the stalky bits off as I can (they can make the cordial taste bitter), and counting out the heads as I go. The recipe I've devised over the years needs 25 flower heads to 1kg sugar, and I usually make double this amount. This will result in around 4 litres of syrupy cordial which is then diluted with water/gin/prosecco, so does go a long way.
The basic ingredients are elderflowers, sugar, water, oranges, lemons and citric acid. You can find food grade citric acid very easily online and it lasts for years (the recipe only uses 60g, so check the quantities if you're looking on Amazon)
I have the recipe printed on a piece of paper pegged up in my kitchen, so am sharing it above - sorry if it's a bit blurry but hopefully it's readable if you want to follow it.
Keep in mind that this quantity needs a pretty big pan (or two normal size ones) as it's a surprisingly large volume of liquid, citrus and flower mush.
I strained and bottled my cordial yesterday after leaving it to sit for 24hours and I think it tasted better than in previous years, so maybe 48hours is too long. Yeah, I'd say leave it just a day before straining. You will need a nylon jelly bag for the straining bit (find on Amazon here), or a piece of old fashioned cotton muslin.
Yesterday the weather was an utter summery delight and perfect for having an Elderflower Cordial afternoon. I set up my yarden furniture with a gazillion crochet blankets and set about being the official Chief Taster of this year's batch. I splashed out and purchased a brand new glass for the occasion (£4 from Morrisons, they've a lovely summer range of homewares in at the moment), as well as a bottle of the finest San Pellegrino sparkling water.
In normal non-detoxing times I would have made some lemon shortbread or iced some pretty buns for the occasion, but as the cordial itself is a bit of a sugar bomb I opted for some strawberries and a peach instead.
Ahhhh, doesn't that look refreshingly good? It was indeed, very, very good. In fact, I had three glasses in total, spread across the heat of a very sunny afternoon.
An Elderflower Cordial day needs a suitable pleasurable, leisurely activity to go with it, you can't just sit there and guzzle. One needs to sip and browse beautiful pages or gently engage ones hands with some slow, colourful hooky. It's the rules of summer - loafing while being quietly, mindfully productive.
I remembered that I still had the unopened June edition of The Simple Things magazine to enjoy, what a perfect activity to accompany the cordial....ahhh, those pages are simply divine!
If you like following creative social media accounts, then I can highly recommend the Simple Things account, it's a distilled version of the magazine and will give you lots of lovely free seasonal inspiration if you don't wish to be spendy with the monthly magazine. Find them on Facebook and Instagram @simplethingsmag.
A bit later into the afternoon and the temperature reached 25 degrees which is pretty hot for our little patch of North Yorkshire. So I moved myself from the sofa to the chair to be in the shade and picked up my blanket to work a round or two. I'm up to round 33, and the mindful rhythm of these lengthening rounds is now absolute perfection. It's truly like meditation for me, I find my mind quietens and my hands just do their thing and everything settles into blissful tranquillity.
I really must make the time to share this blanket with you fully - I've just purchased some props for my photographs because I've got some creative ideas about how I want to share the visual story with you. I'm excited for it! I adore this blanket, my whole heart is invested.
By the way, do you like the petunias, aren't the colours wonderful? I also really, really LOVE the colour of the flower pot too, that gorgeous Tiffany blue/green shade will forever be my best favourite.
Right then my loves, it's almost midday and I need to be away from my laptop getting busy packing a few essentials into my flowery shopper because I am jaunting away for a few delicious days with the Hubs.....lucky me. Back soon!
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