April Elderflowers
Rainy
Another rainy April day….
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Salmonberry
…Aurelia and Patience had an appointment with a flowering bush.
Not this one, but Aurelia wanted to stop off here on the way because the salmonberry flower matches her new rain coat.
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Elderberry
The Elderberry is in bloom!! Our Elderflower Cordial recipe says to gather the flower clusters on a warm sunny day, but there haven’t been any lately and none are in the weather forecast.
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Basket full
We gathered a basket-full (the recipe says 15 to 20 flower clusters, but ours are very small)!
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Lemon Slices
Patience sliced up a whole lemon.
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Grated zest
Aurelia grated the zest, and squeezed the juice of a second lemon…
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Sugar
We measured half a kilo of sugar…
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Honey
…and four tablespoons of honey.
The Elderflower Cordial recipe says to:
boil a liter of water, add sugar, honey and the lemon zest.
Take off the heat, add flower clusters and lemon slices
and then…
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Wait
….let stand for 24 hours.
before straining and bottling.
Patience and Aurelia wonder why all the most delicious recipes require long periods of waiting?
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It will be wonderful when the wait is over. Patience has the perfect name for waiting.
Patience is patience itself to be sure! I think the cordial will be good – I haven’t made it before, but the process seems fairly straightforward.
The girls have intrigued me. I’ve never heard of this recipe…is it used like syrup on pancakes or ice-cream????
We will dilute it with sparkling water to make Elderflower pressé (if all goes well!)
would you mind sharing the type of fabric you used for the raincoats and where you found it? Thanks, Kathy
I bought the fabric for the raincoats in the south of France last summer. It was in an equivalent to “Michael’s Craft Store” but I don’t remember the store’s name. The fabric is very light weight, almost like Liberty Lawn, but has a very thin and flexible coating of plastic on one side. They were sold as cut and rolled pieces, approximately “Fat Quarter” size, but there were no selvedges or identifying features on it, so I can’t tell you the manufacturer.
hmm, have eaten elderberry jelly but never cordial…I will be quite interested to hear what the girls (and their human) think of it. Great pics, great raincoats!!
This is made from the flowers instead of the berries, but it is the same plant…the cordial I have had in the past has been absolutely delicious, I will let you know what the Quimper Hitty’s verdict is on how this compares!