Elderflower cordial: thirty flower heads, lemons, a day of steeping
The scent of May sealed in a bottle: elderflower heads covered with water and lemon slices, steeped for a day, strained and boiled with sugar and citric acid. A spoon of cordial in a glass of sparkling water is the best lemonade of summer; the same spoon in hot tea brings May back in autumn. The flowers grow everywhere and cost nothing; you only need to know how to pick them.
Your own work in that: 40 min.
- Picking and sorting 15 min
- Steeping 1440 min
- Cooking 15 min
- Bottling 10 min
Step by step
0 / 7 donePick the flowers wisely
Pick on a dry, sunny day, before noon, away from busy roads. Choose fully open, creamy-white, strongly scented heads; leave browning ones and closed buds. Snip with scissors just below the head, without thick stems. At home lay them flower side down on a cloth for a quarter of an hour and shake out the insects. Don't wash them: the pollen is the whole aroma.
Ingredients: 30 pcs elderflower heads · 1500 ml water · 3 pcs lemons · 1000 g sugar · 30 g citric acid
TipElder is a shrub with flat white heads and feathery leaves; don't confuse it with lilac or with dwarf elder — a low perennial with an unpleasant smell, which is poisonous. Raw elderberries, leaves and stems of elder are mildly toxic too, which is why we take only the flowers, and always cook the berries in autumn.
Creamy, fragrant, face down on a clothCover the flowers
Put the flowers and the sliced lemons in a large jar or pot. Cover with cold boiled water so everything is submerged, and weigh down with a small plate.
Flowers, lemon slices, cold waterSteep for a day
Cover with a cloth and leave somewhere cool and shaded for 24 hours, stirring once or twice. No longer than 48 hours: the infusion starts to ferment and turn bitter. The water should smell like an elder bush at noon.
TipCold steeping instead of boiling the flowers is the secret of the bright, floral flavour. Boiled flowers smell of hay.
A day in the cool, under a clothStrain
Strain the infusion through a sieve lined with muslin or a clean cloth into a pot. Don't squeeze the flowers: the cordial would turn cloudy. Discard the lemons.
Through muslin, without squeezingBoil with sugar
Add the sugar and citric acid to the infusion, heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves, bring to the boil and boil 3 minutes, skimming the foam. The acid isn't only for flavour: it lowers the pH and, together with the sugar, helps the cordial keep.
Sugar, citric acid, three minutes at the boilBottle hot
Pour the boiling cordial through a funnel into scalded bottles right up to the cork, seal and turn upside down for 10 minutes. In a dark, cool pantry it keeps up to a year; keep an opened bottle in the fridge and use within 2 months. Freeze some in ice-cube trays for winter.
Hot cordial, scalded bottlesDrink
For lemonade: 1 part cordial to 6–8 parts sparkling water, ice, a lemon slice, a mint leaf. In tea, over crepes, in prosecco for a hugo. If you have fresh flower heads left over, fry them in crepe batter: elderflower fritters, a dessert that exists for only a few weeks a year.
A spoon per glass, ice, lemon
Before you start
Less sugar
You can go down to 700 g, but then keep the cordial in the fridge and drink it within 3 months. Sugar and citric acid are the only preservatives in this bottle.
With lime and mint
Two limes instead of one lemon and a handful of mint in the steep: a more refreshing cordial, for drinks.
Cloudy, or smells of yeast
Steeped too long or too warm. Cloudiness from pollen is normal; a yeasty smell and bubbles mean the infusion started fermenting. Next time a single day, somewhere cool.