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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Thus is all very useful.Thank you. Can anyone offer advise for making elder flower cordial in bulk? We have a Summer School fair coming up and a group of mums are going up to school on polling day for a mass picking of flowers to make school cordial to sell. The problem is it’s a month to go to the fair and I’m worried we’re either going to kill everyone if we get it wrong, or it will be a summer fair to remember with everyone getting sloshed? Help
Oh and I’d heard that the elder flower tree branches can make magical musical flutes because they’re hollow. Is this true and has anyone ever tried?
A good way to preserve stuff is to use real ale bottles ( the chunky brown ones not the thin lager ones) and buy a crown-capper and some crown caps. Sterilise the bottles by heating them in the oven (pour boiling water over the caps) and then seal them using the crown-capper. Keeps stuff for years. I bought my crown-capper from a homebrew shop:
West Wilts Homebrew Wine Making & Brewing Supplies. Tel: 01225 753286| 68, Frome Rd, Southwick, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BA14 9QQ ..
They might do mail order?
Try sterilising bottles or jars in the microwave:
Wash bottles/jars put a little water (50 ml) into them and place in the microwave. Microwave on the top setting until water boils, but no so long that it all boils away. By that time the microwaves will have killes all the nasty germs etc.
Simply pour the water out and use straight away.
Be sure to use microwave safe jars/bottles (i.e. glass) and remove all metal before placing in the microwave oven. If using metal lids you will have to sterilise them in a different way.
I found this method works even better than the oven one and it is much quicker (i.e. 2 or 3 minutes)
Now that the Elderflower is in full bloom (in most places in the U.K) it may be appropriate to add a few further comments to those that I made previously. It has been long established that Elder has some very beneficial medicinal properties and this applies to the flowers, berries and even the bark.As a remedy for colds and flu Elderflower Tea made from dried Elderflowers (or even fresh flowers when available) mixed with lemon and honey taken before retiring will bring on the fever and usually leaves you feeling much better the following day. The cordial that contains the same basic ingredients should have the same beneficial effects.
Those who make home-made wine will be familiar with the processes that involve fermentation and its consequences that have already been mentioned and some of the correspondants have practical experience of this. Some may desire to produce an alcoholic cordial and this can be best achieved by introducing a general purpose wine yeast available in tablet form from stores that specialise in supplies for home-made beer and wine and some chemists. Success is more likely if the sugar concentration in the initial liquid is lowered and the fermentation allowed to exhaust all of the available sugar. The yeast must then be killed and raising the temperature will normally achieve this. Heating the liquid in a microwave should have a dual effect since the microwaves should have a detrimental effect on the live yeast although I cannot swear to this. Do not raise the temperature above 70 C. as this will evaporate the alcohol. Campden tablets added at this stage will further stabalise the liquid without affecting the flavour. The rest of the sugar can then be added and the cordial bottled. Providing strict conditions of sterility have been observed the resultant cordial should be stable and like a good wine even improve with keeping. After bottling periodic checks should be made to ensure that fermentation does not re-start as this can have explosive consequences. I would recommend that you avoid the temptation to make a cordial that has too high a concentration of alcohol. Once opened the cordial can become contaminated but keeping the bottle sealed except to pour the cordial should avoid this.
adding one campden tablet to each gallon of cordial will not affect the taste and will kill the yeast off, you will have no fizzy cordial and the campden also acts as a preservative and the cordial cant be kept for a very long time!
Just about to go and pick my elderflowers, we have a great homebrew shop down here in sunny devon, based in the indoor market in Newton Abbot! or they also have a website www.milltop.co.uk
Wendy
we make apple juice on a local farm, we add asorbic acid to help preserve, we add 10g per 5 gallon, it doesnt sound much but its enough for our needs. Not sure if it would be the same for a cordial though!
To help further preserve the cordial, you can pasturize, let the bottled, sealed cordial sit at a temperature of 70 degrees for 20 minutes. The cordial should then be fine out of the fridge for up to 6 months. I only use very small bottles to avoid any wastage!
Hi!
I’d like to make elderflower cordial using Ascorbic acid, vitamin C, instead of the usual citric acid.
The trouble is I have no idea how much vitamin C powder to use in my usual recipe based on two and a half pints of water, three pounds of sugar, one lemon, about twenty elderflower heads and two teaspoonsful of citric acid.
Can anyone out there help?
Wendy.
Anyone making things from naturally occuring items (elderflowers) needs to be aware that they probably contain a naturally occuring yeast, often specific to the particular plant. Any yeast in the presence of sugar will ferment to produce carbon dioxide and alcohol. Yeast is killed by excess heat and the use of boiling water in the recipe is obviously intended to do this. The growth of yeast is also inhibited by high concentrations of sugar, carbon dioxide or alcohol. It is also stopped by extream cold but once room temperature is regained it will re-awake and do what comes naturally to it i.e make carbon dioxide and alcohol from sugar in order to grow and re-produce itself.Thus the use of high quantities of sugar called for in the recipe might inhibit fermentation but some of the naturally occuring yeasts do have a high degree of tollerance to heat, sugar, carbon dioxide and alcohol. If a live yeast is present in the mixture there is always a danger that fermentation will occur and since yeast itself is a plant it will grow and reproduce itself until it has used up all of the available sugar or the growth is stopped by intollerable levels of alcohol or carbon dioxide. Reducing the amount of sugar suggested by the recipe will almost certainly produce fermentation if there is any live yeast present. Yeasts of various kinds exist in the air all around us and need to be excluded from the mixture if unwelcome developments are to be avoided, hence the need for a clean and sterile environment. A firmentation produces prodigeous amounts of carbon dioxide that is capable creating enormous pressure in a sealed container with potentially explosive consequences. An open fermentation where the carbon dioxide is allowed to escape given time can produce equally prodigeous amounts of alcohol, often in excess of 15% by volume depending on the type of yeast and the available sugar present. Anyone using the recipe needs to be aware of the above basic facts and modify their actions accordingly.Anyone making a cordial with the intention of generating some alcoholic content should raise the temperature in order to kill the yeast befor bottling it.
Hello Brian
Thanks so much for your tips and advice on how to stop the cordial not becoming alcoholic. Great stuff!
Hi Marie-Noelle
Citric acid can be bought easily on line – I use our wine and beer suppliers http://www.art-of-brewing.co.uk/
No we don’t run courses! This site is a sideline as I work full time ATM.
Hi
Where can you buy citric acid? It is getting more and more difficult to find it these days.
Great website, by the way. Do you run courses?
Thanks