Fiona’s traditional elderflower cordial recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cordials and Syrups | 181 comments
Photo: Elderflower blossoms in the sun - best picked for cordial
It’s elderflower cordial recipe season once again!
Yesterday afternoon I found myself up a tall ladder with a carrier bag, picking elderflower heads. I picked about fifty heads. They are best picked when the sun is on them. I climbed higher and higher to find exactly what I wanted. They had to be perfect with no trace of brown blossom. According to Joanna’s Food brown blossom can foul the cordial.
My sister brought a similar recipe back from France. Since I introduced Danny to elderflower and pink grapefruit cocktail, it seemed a good idea to make my own cordial tweaking the recipe to suit my taste.
There is a printable recipe card below the post!
There seem to be as many uses for elderflower cordial as recipes. Apart from adding a splash to fruit fools and pies, it can be added to a vinaigrette dressing, and apparently is delicious with chicken breasts. Determined to experiment I made double the quantity below. I poured my cordial into warm sterilised bottles and sealed them immediately with corks. They keep well in a cold area of the barn – we often are finishing the last bottle of cordial as the new flowers open on the trees. I also freeze some syrup, just in case.
Other elderflower recipes that my interest you:
Fiona’s Elderflower and Lemon cordial
Judy’s Elderflower and Lime Jellies
Fiona’s Elderflower and Raspberry Jellies
| Fiona’s traditional elderflower cordial recipe |
- 1.5 litres of boiling water
- 1 kilo of white granulated sugar
- 20 large elderflower heads (if they are small, pick more)
- 4 lemons
- 55g of citric acid
- In a Pyrex bowl (or deep saucepan) pour the boiling water onto the sugar and stir. Leave to cool, stirring every now and then to dissolve the sugar.
- When cool add the citric acid, the lemons (zested and sliced) and the elderflower heads.
- Leave to steep for 48 hours.
- Strain twice through sterilised muslin (how do I sterilise muslin? See Tips and tricks below)
- Using a jug and funnel carefully pour into hot sterilised bottles (how do I sterilise bottles? See Tips and tricks below)
Tips and tricks:
How do I sterilise a jelly bag or muslin square?
Both can be scalded with boiling water. If you are using a clean muslin bag or square you can iron them with a hot iron. This also works with tea cloths.
How do I sterilise bottles?
The sterilising method that we used is simple. Just before making the syrup, I quickly wash and rinse the bottles and place them upside down in a cold oven. Set the temperature to 160c (140c fan-assisted). When the oven has reached the right temperature I turn off the heat. The bottles will stay warm for quite a while. Sterilise the lids by boiling these for a few minutes in water.
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Am in the process of making this years elderflower cordial. Made a bumper batch last year and we are on the last bottle – it has kept beautifully for a year.
I have made elderflower cordial for a number of years and enjoyed it very much. I am interested to know whether i can use the flowers from an ornamental elder tree that i have in my garden as well as the “wild” elderflowers that I have been using?
I don’t see why not. I’d love to hear whether there’s a difference in taste if you do use them.
Hi Fiona,
British common elder is Sambucus nigra, there are also popular garden breeds called Aurea and Guincho Purple that, but these are almost the same plant really, just with different coloured leaves. All fine for cordial.
We also use some oranges with the lemons, I think it gives more body to the flavour & gives it a good colour too.
I was doing a quick calculation & I reckon that it costs about 80 per litre to make long-lasting cordial at home, once you have all the buckets etc.
It costs £7-9 per litre in the shops!
Katherine, good news.
there are ways to have the cordial for your wedding.
check out Rach’s comments on the 30th May 2009. There are two ways of preserving the cordial. Camden tablets (home brew supplies)are what they use in the wine to stop fermentation and act as a preservative. Sodium metabisulphate. Used at 0.1% of cordial it will keep. Be careful when crushing it or breathing over it if you have asthma, but added in that small amount to the drink will not hurt – or all the wine drinkers would be in trouble!!!
Also the other way she had of the hot water bath is the organic method, just make sure you dont undercut the time for the hot water bath and the bottle is almost immersed.
For the cordial. I do the method of infusing the flowers for 4 days. You MUST cover this (clingwrap)and have airtight as the flowers will attract the wild yeast that is floating in the air and start fermentation process – told by homebrew shop owner.
Glass is good for the cordial which shouldnt explode if using the camden tablet and the plastic 2litre drink bottles are good for the champagne.
Champagne would be great for the wedding toasts!
Good luck and happy drinking to all.
p.s. for any hayfever sufferers you can dry the flowers and drink with hot water about 3wks before hayfever season hits. The flowers will help reduce hayfever symptoms.
I note that Katherine would like to make cordial for her wedding in June. She is probably right to assume that fresh Elderflower will not be available in time to prepared the cordial for the 2nd of June, but she could be lucky if we have a nice hot April & May. The weather of the last few years seems to rule this out. The normal way of preserving Elderflower is to dry it either artifically in a cool oven or naturally in the sun. The dried product can be stored in jars and appears to retain much of the beneficial effects.
It’s obviously too late to do this now but could be useful for the future. The dried Elderflower can be used to make a tea-like drink that is an excellent treatment for colds and flu. Two teaspoons of dried elderflower to a cup of boiling water left to draw for a few minutes then strained before adding a spoonfull of honey and possibly a sachet of lemsip (or similar) appears benefical although I can’t vow for which of the above ingredients has the greatest effect.
So far as cordial is concerned the died product can be substituted for the fresh product at any time providing the possibility of making Eldeflower Cordial throughout the year.I would not claim that the dried product is as good as the fresh one but is a good substitute.
Most stores selling products for home made wine and beer often stock dried elderflower and it can also be obtained in some Health Stores.
Hi all I am planning to get married June 2nd 2012 and want to make ELderflower cordial for the event. It looks like we are unlikely to have any flowers out in enough time to make it – has anyone ever tried freezing the flower heads rather then freezing the cordial?
Thanks
I note from the comments that this year there has been a mixture of success and minor failures, most of them related to the cordial becoming fizzy. Any fizz is almost certainly due to firmentation and my previous comments need to be observed if an alcoholic cordial is to be avoided. The generation of alcohol by firmentation can be beneficial in so far as alcohol is an organic solvent and its presence will aid in the extraction of the active ingredients (both flavour and medicinal properties) from the elderflowers. However, the firmenting mixture should be stained from the flowers after a few days since other less desireable flavours could also be extracted.
If the aim is to make a wine rather than a cordial then I suggest a modification that could facilitate and improve the ultimate product. Wine is the product of the firmentation of fruit juice and the ideal fruit is the grape that tends to contain all of the essetial ingredients in the correct proportions. Wines made from other fruits often need the addition of acid and tannin in order to achieve the ideal redult. Wines made from flowers need other additions in order to provide the necessary sugar since the flowers only contrbute to the flavour and medicinal properties. The firmentation process and the final product can be greatly aided in its initial stages if a litre of commercially available sterile grape juice is added in the initial stages to each gallon of wine in lieu of water. Most suppermarkets sell this at economical prices.
My previous comments regarding avoiding excess alcohol and stabalising the final product apply.
Some contributors have experienced the growth of mould on their efforts. Just like yeasts there are many moulds that exist all around us with perhaps the best known being that discovered by Sir Alexander Flemming to give the world penicillin its first commercial anti-biotic. Not all are so beneficial and there is one family that prospers in the presence of alcohol to create vinigar. Sterile and closed conditions are essential to eliminate this risk.
Citric acid extracted from lemon juice is probably a better addition than that obtained as a pure chemical since it can contribute other subtle additions but care needs to be excercised otherwise some less desirable could be introduced from the unwashed or waxed fruit.
Hello Brian
Thank you for such an informative and really useful comment. Much appreciated.
HI my mother also had a ginger baby when I was younger, which she used to make ginger beer, And I am going to see if I am able to find the recipe in her old cookbook, failing that I will ask my sister if she ever had a copy. But unable to do this at the moment as I am going away to France for a month.
Julie D
Thank you, such a fantastic recipe my cordial was a complete success, over winter I have been saving the small glass ketchup bottles which are a great size and easy to store and also a nice ammount to share with lots of friends! Your tips are wonderful made it all sound and come together easily.
I made elderflower cordial with my husband just over 2 weeks ago bottled it in sterilised glass bottles last thursday tasted great but went away for 5 days went to have some yesterday and doesn’t smell great and has gone fizzy why would that have happened? I used 40 elderflower heads 3 litres water, I think 2 or 3kg of sugar, 4 lemons and 50g citric acid