CookingNatureSummerMayJune
Elderflower cordial
Pick creamy elderflower heads in early summer and steep them with sugar and lemon. Ready to drink the following week.
How it goes
- Show how to recognise elder: the bark, the leaves, the flat creamy flower heads and the smell.
- Pick heads on a dry morning, from high up and away from roads.
- Shake out the insects and put the heads in a bucket with sliced lemon.
- Pour over hot water with sugar dissolved in it, cover and leave for a day.
- Strain into bottles to take home, or dilute and drink at the next session.
Risk-benefit starting point
Shared by the author as a starting point, planning this idea imports it into your own risk-assessment library to review and make your own before use.
Why it's worth it- Knowing a tree by its flower, its smell and its season.
- Making something from the woods to take home.
- Misidentification, Picking a toxic plant with similar flowers (hemlock, hogweed) residual: Low
- Hot water, Scalds residual: Low
- Only from a tree the leader has identified; every head checked before it goes in the bucket.
- Teach that elder is a shrub or tree: anything growing on a single hollow stem from the ground is not picked.
- Adult handles the hot water.
Questions & comments
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Ask the first one: how long does it take, what age did it work for. The author gets a nudge by email.