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Elderflowers: BigBarn’s seasonal foraged food & drink

Spring and summer are great times for foraging. When you live in a green and pleasant land like the UK everything suddenly changes in the spring. From a distance the landscape looks like every shade of green yet up close there are thousands of plants and flowers. Many edible.

One plant, the elder, has always annoyed farmers as it ruins traditional slow growing hedges due to its ability to self sow and grow fast. The elder takes over and often kills the old hedge and makes the hedgerow look very uneven.

So if you pick elder flowers you may be doing your local farmer a favour. Please ask first though!

Once you have your flowers you can make cordial with Elderflowers. (and avoid the sugar tax?)

Delicious & refreshing

Elderflower Cordial Ingredients
3kg sugar (white if you want a clear cordial)
3 unwaxed lemons (many lemons are waxed so check the label, you don’t want wax in your cordial)
30 fresh elderflower heads, stalks & leaves trimmed off
50g citric acid from chemists (optional, replace with an extra lemon)

Put the sugar and 2 litres of water into a large saucepan. Heat slowly, stirring occasionally until the sugar has dissolved. Once dissolved bring the pan to the boil and remove from the stove.

Juice the lemons, skin the zest using a potato peeler and slice the remains.

Fill a large bowl with cold water and give the flowers a gentle wash to remove any dirt or insects. Gently shake the flowers and add to the syrup along with the lemons, juice, zest and citric acid, then stir well.

Cover the pan and leave to infuse for 36 hrs.

Line a colander with a clean tea towel over a large bowl or pan. Ladle the syrup in to the colander and let it drip slowly through.

Elder berry or flower wine?

Once all the liquid has gone through compost the bits left in the towel and use a funnel to fill sterilised bottles with the cordial (best to sterilise glass bottles through the dishwasher on a hot wash then dry in a low oven).

Your Elderflower cordial is ready to drink straight away, or will keep in the fridge for up to 6 weeks, or freeze it in plastic containers, or ice cube trays.

You can also make Elderflower gin by soaking the flowers with some sugar in gin for 1 week. Or add elderflowers to your jam recipes to give a subtle twist.

For all the flowers you leave you can go back to your Alder tree in a month or so and harvest the elder berries to make wine, jam or jelly.

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