Elderflower Cordial

Started 9th June 2012

Ok, so it's not a wine, but it's another drink we're making using ingredients from home, so I'm adding it here.

We looked at several recipes for elderflower cordial. They were all very similar, but with different quantities of water and sugar. The one thing we weren't sure of was how many elderflowers we needed. Each recipe said how many elderflower heads to use, but not what size the elderflower heads should be - a large head could be twice the size of a medium or smaller one.

In the end we gave up trying to find out, and just made the cordial. We had enough elderflower heads for 2 batches of cordial.

Elderflower Cordial
Ingredients:
25-30 elderflower heads (don't worry about the size!)
3 pints water
2.2lbs sugar
2 lemons
2 oranges
2oz citric acid

Step 1:
Put elderflower heads in the bucket
Put sugar and water in pan and bring to the boil
While this is coming to the boil, zest the oranges and lemons, slice them, add the zest and slices to the bucket
Pour the boiling sugared water into the bucket
Add the citric acid and stir
Cover and leave for 24 hours

Step 2:
Strain through muslin or J-cloth into clean plastic bottles.

The bottles can be kept in the freezer until ready to use. Apparently the citric acid should help it keep longer if stored in a cool dark cupboard, but we have a big chest freezer so we'll use that instead. The cordial can be served diluted with water, still or sparkling and slices of lemon etc.

Verdict:
Lovely! Even my 15yo son, who is extremely wary of anything new or home made, really enjoyed it. He brought his girlfriend round just to try it too. We did have to label it "squash" for him though .....
Now all we need is for some nice warm sunny weather to really enjoy it, instead of the cold wet miserable weather we still have ....