That time of year...
Saturday, June 10, 2006 at 2:17PM 
The elderflowers are late this year, but the warm weather has brought them all out and this morning we had no problems collecting a huge bowlful to make the 2006 vintage Elderflower Cordial. Making the base for our favourite drink holds many sad memories for me, but it's therapeutic to remember the good times as well.
Our favourite Elderflower cordial recipe came from The Times a few years back.
1 lemon, grate the rind and slice the fruit
35g citric acid
900g sugar
10 elderflower heads
750ml boiling water
Put sugar in a large bowl and pour on boiling water. Stir to dissolve. Add the grated lemon rind and the rest of the lemon, the citric acid and the flowerheads. Leave for 24 hours, stirring occasionally. Sieve through muslin, pour into clean bottles and seal with screwtop caps. Keeps for six months or you can freeze it, leaving room for expansion, of course.
We freeze it in plastic tubs, then defrost and decant into those French lemonade bottles which go in the fridge door. This is the last bottle of the 2005 vintage.
I find the hardest part of this is buying the citric acid powder, which, I am told, has many uses, not all of which are acceptable in polite society. Of course, if you are a fine upstanding member of the community and pillar of the WI as I am, you will have no problems! Otherwise, I can say that a bottle of the delicious liquid taken into the pharmacy as evidence works wonders for next year's citric acid request, especially if taken in on the hottest, stickiest day of the year.
Reader Comments (5)
We had a lovely run itn the car today and I remarked on the elderflowers. I had a bottle of home made elderberry wine once and it was nectar!
I will save that recipe in case ia come across some locally. Thanks for sharing.
Hmmm, used to make this before the kids were born. Once we came home from holiday to find a couple of the bottles had smashed from the pressure and were all over the kitchen floor! (It didn't help that we'd had an attempted burglary and the police thought these bits of glass looked suspicious...)
How funny you should post this today. I was only thinking a couple of days ago that there must be a recipe for the cordial somewhere!
Thanks, Gill
mmmmm yummy. remarkably like my "elderflower champagne" recipe, which was too yummy to leave for more than 4 months (should have been 6). When I drank it it tasted like cordial so had loads as it "hadn't worked" - then collapsed into a riotous giggling heap a couple of jugs full later :):)
So is this a non-fizzy recipe? Like helen suzanne, I have made fizzy elderflower'champagne' without the citric acid. Wonder if its that that stops fermentation! I do have some citric acid, bought from a home-brew market stall, but I am now very intrigued as to alternative uses!!!