One of my favourite tastes of summer has to be elderflower, 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 flowers.
As for the gathering part it couldn’t be easier, the stems that hold the flower bunches are very weak and can be easily pinched through, and a good sized tree can easily fill a basket. The best time to go out gathering is half way 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 there fore have more taste, though personally I’ve never noticed the difference.
Another note on gathering is don’t bring anyone that has hay fever, as elder flowers contain a huge amount of pollen. I have personally ended up with a yellow front on a black t-shirt i wore to 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.
The only thing you need to do to your flowers when you get home is ping them off them stalks, which is best done with a comb or dinner fork. Gently brush the flowers off the storks, but try not to use to much pressure as you’ll just end up snapping bits of stalk off to.
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 normally it depends on when you gather and where you are. Sometimes you’ll be lucky enough to come across bunch’s that bugs haven’t set up home in yet, were as others will contain a small army of flies and beetles.
When you have a big bowl of flowers its time to turn them into something tasty. As for the following recipes the amount of flowers you use can be varied greatly according to your personal taste, as elder flowers are normally quite strong in flavour.
Elderflower cordial
40 elderflower bunch’s, or the equivalent in trimmed flowers
3 pints of water
1kg of sugar / 2.25 pounds
50g citric acid (optional)
Any additional flavours 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 flavours 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 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 on this recipe to stop the liquid from fermenting, which will cause the lid to explode. If there’s to much sugar it chokes the yeast and stops the fermentation process from beginning, which brings us to out next recipe.
Elder flower wine – 5 Gallon recipe
Equipment
A fermenting vessel, which cost 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 its being filtered out 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 table spoons yeast nutrient
2 tea spoons of campden powder
As many elder flowers as you can be bothered to ping off the stalks, the more you use the more flavour you’ll get, but for a general estimate anywhere between 50 and 100 bunch’s per 1 gallon of liquid will make a nice flavour.
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 round 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 a fermentation 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 its 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 its well mixed in add the yeast, which will have instructions on the packet of 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 nothings happening 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 nutrient and wait.
Anywhere between 4 and 7 days later the bloops of air coming out the airlock would have greatly slowed down. At this point you want to strain the liquid through some cheesecloth and remove all of the flowers.
Clean out the fermenter and put the strained liquid back in along with some more yeast nutrient and the other half of the sugar and return to a warm place.
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 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 your 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.
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 – Same principle with the sponge cake, just add some to the mix and stir in well.
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 use at a later date, but them go very crumbly if you dry them and lose some of their flavour. 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.