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Elderflowers

LoneSavant

By LoneSavant
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LoneSavant

LoneSavant

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I'm coming into my annual glut of elderflowers, and would love some experience/ideas/recipes on what I can do with them!

Torren O'Haire - Private Chef, FMSC Tablemaster, Culinary Scholar

"life is a combination of magic and pasta"

-F. Fellini

"We should never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal."

-J. Child

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Send 'em to me! Seriously though, I think it would be fun to do an elderflower beer with them. I have a batch of lilac beer on the go right now and the wild roses have started to bloom so I'm going to give that a shot too. I'm talking about beers in the style of ginger beer, not actual beer. I also did a chocolate-based version that's nice but kinda irrelevant to the flower theme.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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LoneSavant

LoneSavant

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Send 'em to me! Seriously though, I think it would be fun to do an elderflower beer with them. I have a batch of lilac beer on the go right now and the wild roses have started to bloom so I'm going to give that a shot too. I'm talking about beers in the style of ginger beer, not actual beer. I also did a chocolate-based version that's nice but kinda irrelevant to the flower theme.

Lilac beer sounds amazing! Pass on your technique? How would you use elderflowers in the place of lilac?

Torren O'Haire - Private Chef, FMSC Tablemaster, Culinary Scholar

"life is a combination of magic and pasta"

-F. Fellini

"We should never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal."

-J. Child

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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Infuse 1.5 liters of water with fresh flowers (or herbs, spices, whatever), sieve and dissolve in 125 grams of sugar. Pour into a plastic 2 liter bottle, add 50 - 60 grams of fresh lemon juice (or other citrus, whatever seems appropriate for the flavor you're using) and about .75 gram of yeast. Fill with cold water leaving about an inch of headspace. Cap, shake and leave at room temp for 24 - 48 hours (until the bottle is very firm and doesn't yield). Chill at least 8 hours to stop fermentation, bleed off pressure and store in the fridge. The flower and herb versions seem pretty stable but I had a bit of trouble with gushing with the chocolate version, it took a lot of patience to bleed the pressure enough to open it without losing half of it. The chocolate version did not include a citrus juice and had more sugar (150 grams). The extra sugar was probably the difference but I wanted more residual sweetness for that version. Next time I'll return the sugar to the lower amount and add some lactose.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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  • 11 months later...
Amy D.

Amy D.

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The elderflowers in my garden are almost ready for the picking so i'm just looking for some tried and tested recipes, cordial and champagne are a must but i'm also interested in any more unsual suspects that ideally involve eating the flower.

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