Elderflower recipes

Elderflower Recipes

Elderflower is the key ingredient in French liqueur St. Germain, and included in our own Edinburgh Gin. Most European countries from Denmark to Italy consider the Elder sacred, with Danes and old English believing its deep connection with the faerie folk, while Sicilians and Russians believed it drove away evil spirits and bad luck.

Elderflower, both as a plant and medicinal herb, was so well known in the time of Nicholas Culpepper in the 1600s, that he saw no need to describe either its appearance or its uses:

“I hold it needless to write any description of this, since every boy that plays with a pop gun will not mistake another tree instead of elder.”

A famous herbalist from 1960s, Mrs. Maude Grieve extolled the virtues of elderflowers in fighting off common colds and influenza: dried flower infused for thirty minutes in boiling water, to be taken before going to bed to promote sweating. It is also a powerful anti-inflammatory that helps relieve the symptoms of hay-fever and other allergies.

More recently, people know of elderflower due to its ubiquitous presence as cordials in the supermarket isles. So we will start with a homemade version.

Elderflower cordial

It is so much nicer than the ones in stores!

Makes around 2.5 L of cordial

Ingredients

• 30 Elderflower heads

• 3 lemons

• 2 oranges

• 1kg sugar

1. Pick enough elderflower to fill a large pan (around 30 flower heads)

2. Leave the flower heads outside in the sunshine for a few hours to let any wee beastie residents escape

3. Place elderflower in the large pan, bring 1.5L of water to a boil, pour over the flower

4. Place roughly peeled zest of 3 lemons and 2 oranges into the pan

5. Lid and leave overnight to infuse.

6. Next day, sieve the contents through a muslin bag or very fine sieve (when I didn’t do this properly, daughter refused to drink the cordial after finding one dead beastie!)

7. Wash the pan, and place the elderflower/lemon/orange infusion back into the pan

8. Squeeze the zested lemons and oranges and add the juice to the elderflower infusion in the pan

9. Add the sugar

10. Bring to a boil, make sure the sugar is completely dissolved

11. Then leave to simmer (this way you can store the cordial in a cupboard or pantry) for 5 minutes

12. The syrup causes really nasty burns, so be very careful with the handling

13. Into a sterilised bottle, use a funnel to very carefully pour in the hot cordial liquid, securely lid, and leave to cool in a shady place

14. Label (as you will forget!)

Elderflower jelly:

For every 250ml of water, add 10ml of cordial (more or less to your liking). Make 500-750ml of elderflower juice. Gently heat the juice, add 1 tablespoon of grass-fed gelatine (Ossa is a great brand) per 250ml of water, so for 750ml, you need 3 tablespoons. Let it gently heat until the gelatine is dissolved. Add a dash of lemon (to taste), and place into a glass mould or bowl. You can float some summer strawberries for a touch of colour. Leave in fridge until solid (takes 12+hours). For an adult version, you can add a tablespoon or 2 of Sweet Elderflower tincture below instead of the cordial.

Sweet Elderflower tincture

This is similar to the above in taste, but the preservation is alcohol and the sugar rather than heat. This will keep in a bottle for up to a year.

1. Into a mason jar, place elderflower (take the flowers off the stem as much as possible discard the stems), then 2-3 tablespoons of either organic sugar or raw honey. Layer thus until the jar is filled.

2. Leave for 48 hours for the honey to infuse with elderflower, or sugar to macerate the flowers

3. Now, fill the mason jar with your favourite vodka

4. Leave a week or more – the longer you leave, the elderflower essence will be stronger, so taste and see what you prefer

5. For me, for medicinal purposes, I leave for 6 weeks, shaking the jar every day to prevent any moulding. For making alcoholic cocktails/cake making, I strain after a week

6. Decant into a sterilised bottle and don't forget to label!

Coughs and cold syrup:

When you add vodka to the elderflower macerate, you can add ginger, fresh thyme and linden flower to make a great cold/hay-fever remedy – this I recommend leave for 6 weeks, shaking frequently, then sieve and decant into a sterilised container (and label!).

If you want to add some immune boosting kick into the mix, add onion and/or garlic when macerating with sugar!

Elderflower and lemon cream cake (gluten free!)

This gluten-free cream cake is ideal to finish off a summer barbecue or picnic, and is made a little special with the addition of elderflower tincture or cordial 

Ingredients:

• Salt – pinch

• Egg yolk 5

• Organic cane or granulated sugar 100g

• Lemon juice 40ml

• Finely grated lemon rind from the juiced lemons

• Almond powder 50g

• Meringue:

  • Egg white 5

  • Organic cane or granulated sugar 50g

• Organic double cream: 300ml

• Organic cane or granulated sugar 1 Tablespoon

• Sweet Elderflower tincture 3 Tablespoons (or elderflower cordial to make it child friendly)

1. Preheat oven at 180C

2. Prepare a 30cmx30cm baking tin by placing a buttered baking sheet on top, cut it and make neat corners so that baking sheet fits the tin (you may have to use 2 overlapping baking sheets)

3. Place all the egg yolk and 100g sugar into a bowl, beat well until creamy lemon-white and sugar is dissolved

4. Place the lemon juice and rind into this mixture along with the almond powder and mix quickly until incorporated

5. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites into a meringue

6. Once the egg whites are peaking, place 25g of the sugar, mix gently, then add the rest of the sugar (25g) and whip some more until the egg peaks but slightly folds at the top and the mixture has that classic meringue sheen

7. Mix third of the meringue into the egg almond powder mixture and using a spatula, mix very gently making sure you don’t destroy the air bubbles in the meringue

8. Now place the rest of the meringue into the mixture and mix quickly and gently to incorporate

9. Spread the cake batter into the baking tin, using a spatula gently flatten to fill the square tin

10. Into the oven for 20mins

11. Take out of the oven, and cover the tin with 2 layers of baking sheet so that as it cools, the moisture is retained

12. Once cooled (about 2-3 hours), cut into 3 equal rectangular pieces

13. Make the cream: place the double cream into a bowl and whip into a cream.

14. Add sugar and Sweet Elderflower Tincture (if you want to make it child friendly, use elderflower cordial instead) into the cream and mix well

15. Cover each layer of cake with a generous amount of the elderflower cream

16. You can also layer in fruits like strawberries or grapes in between and garnish the top of the cake

17. You will have a 3 layered cake with cream (and fruit if you used it) in between

18. Enjoy!