Gathering Elderflowers
One of my favorite tastes of summer has to be elderflowers, and with the UK season coming up shortly at the end of May/ start of June time, what better thing to go out and gather than a big basket of elderflowers?
Where to find elderflowers
The first half of June is the best time to find them at their biggest and highest pollen content, but be careful not to leave them too long because they can quickly brown and drop. In the UK, elderberry trees grow everywhere and can be found in the hedgerows of parks or along canal paths, but finding a single big tree will save you the most time on gathering. The hedges of farm fields make a good place to find the bigger trees and the south-facing side of woodlands are worth checking out. Elderflowers like a good amount of sunlight and even though they can be found throughout woodland, they won’t be big or ripe enough to be worth gathering.
Gathering Elderflowers
As for the gathering part, it couldn’t be easier, the stems that hold the flower bunches are very weak and can be easily snapped off or pressed through with your thumbnail, and finding a good-sized tree can fill a basket. The best time to go out gathering is halfway through a really sunny day, as the flowers are supposed to contain the most pollen after receiving bright sunlight for a few hours and will therefore have more taste, though personally, I’ve never noticed the difference.
Another note on gathering is don’t bring anyone that has hay fever, because elderflowers contain a huge amount of pollen. I have personally ended up with a yellow pollen-covered front on a black t-shirt I wore while gathering once, and sometimes when you pick a big bunch you get a small cloud of yellow pollen burst off when you pull it from the tree. Any additional equipment is optional but not necessary, like a ladder or something for gathering the higher-up flower bunches. This type of tree is in no way uncommon and you’d be better off just finding another tree instead of trying to climb it somehow.
Cleaning Elderflowers
The only thing you need to do to your flowers when you get home is ping them off their stalks, which is best done with a comb or dinner fork. Gently brush the flowers off the storks, but try not to use too much pressure as you’ll just end up snapping bits of stalk off too.
If you wish you can clean them first to remove any bugs, which is best done by submerging them in cold water for about 15 to 20 minutes. The bugs will drown and normally float, allowing you to skim off any critters, but the number of bugs will depend on when you gather and where you are. Sometimes you’ll be lucky enough to come across bunches that bugs haven’t set up home in yet, whereas others will contain a small army of flies and beetles.
When you have a big bowl of flowers it’s time to turn them into something tasty. As for the following recipes, the amount of flowers you use can vary according to your personal taste, as elder flowers are often quite strong in flavor.
Elderflower cordial
40 elderflower bunches, or the equivalent in trimmed flowers
3 pints of water
1kg of sugar / 2.25 pounds
50g citric acid (optional)
For any additional flavors such as any kind of sliced fruit or other juices, just be careful not to overpower the taste of the flowers.
Method
Heat up the water and stir in the sugar, mix it well, and turn off the heat allowing it to cool.
Add the citric acid and any other flavors along with all of the flowers.
Mix well and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 12 hours, preferably a whole day, stirring every so often.
Strain the liquid through some cloth or a tea strainer and put it in your squeaky clean bottles. If you wish you can gently simmer the liquid to remove some of the water to turn it into a slightly concentrated cordial.
The amount of sugar has to be quite high in this recipe to stop the liquid from fermenting, which will cause the lid to explode. If there’s too much sugar it chokes the yeast and stops the fermentation process from beginning, which brings us to our next recipe.
Elderflower wine – 5 Gallon recipe
Equipment
A fermenting vessel, which costs around £15 for a 5-gallon plastic fermenter
Air lock and bung
Large saucepan or cooking pot
5 gallons worth of storage to keep the wine in while it’s being filtered out of the fermenter
Ingredients
1 sachet of yeast, which normally comes in pre-measured amounts for a 5-gallon batch
300g citric acid
5 gallons of water
5kg sugar
2 tablespoons yeast nutrient
2 teaspoons of Campden powder
As many elder flowers as you can be bothered to ping off the stalks, the more you use the more flavor you’ll get, but for a general estimate anywhere between 50 and 100 bunches per 1 gallon of liquid will make a nice flavor.
Method
Clean the flowers and ping them from the stalks, then add them to the container along with half of the sugar, all 5 gallons of water, and the citric acid.
Stir it around until all of the sugar has dissolved into the water, then add the 2 teaspoons of Campden powder. This powder kills the yeast that naturally occurs on the flowers, and conflicting yeasts can often cause the fermentation process to slow down or change the overall taste.
Stir the mixture occasionally and leave it to stand for 24 hours, at which point all the natural yeast should be dead and the campden powder inactive. Also make sure to put the container somewhere warm, as you want the liquid to be preferably just under 20C for the next stage.
Now it’s time to stir in the yeast nutrient, of which 2 tablespoons should do the trick. This powder is basically pure yeast food and helps the process get started quicker. After it’s well mixed in add the yeast, which will have instructions on the packet on how to do so. Add the airlock and bung to seal the container, making sure to put a little water in the airlock to seal it.
The fermenting process should begin between 24 and 48 hours. If nothing happened after this time then something went wrong, probably with the temperature. If nothing starts at all, and the liquid doesn’t smell slightly alcoholic then try and raise the temperature to 20C, add some more yeast nutrients, and wait.
Usually around 7 days later the bloops of air coming out of the airlock would have greatly slowed down. At this point, you want to strain the liquid through some cheesecloth or a fine strainer and remove all of the flowers.
Clean out the fermenter and put the strained liquid back in along with some more yeast nutrients and the other half of the sugar. Stir it well and if you lose some volume from removing the flowers then replace it with fresh water to bring it back up to the 5-gallon mark.
Another 4 to 7 days later the liquid would have eaten all the sugar and the process should start to slow down. After the last bloop of air from the lock comes out, leave it a couple of days after this to make sure all the yeast is dead, or you could add a teaspoon of Campden powder to speed up the process.
When you are certain all the yeast is dead strain off the upper part of the liquid above the sediment that has formed at the bottom. Make sure your bottles are super clean as any dirt can cause a layer of mold to form on the wine. Leave to age for no less than 3 months.
Gathering Elderflowers and what to do with them
Elderflower additions
Sponge cake – the flowers are entirely edible to eat and adding a handful into the mix of a sponge cake works very nicely.
Salad – If you enjoy a nice sweet salad then a sprinkle of flowers on top will only make it better.
Icing – The same principle with the sponge cake, mash some flowers into a paste and stir in well with icing sugar.
Bread – Following a regular bread recipe, just add about 25% more sugar than it suggests and add a handful of flowers into the dough, it makes a lovely sweet bread and only gets better when smeared with elderflower icing.
Preserving
The flowers can be dried and used at a later date, but they go very crumbly if you dry them and lose some of their flavor. The best thing to do is simply freeze them, best done by compressing as many as you can into a plastic tub right after you’ve washed them.
