Cooking with Elderflowers: Cordials, Fritters and More

The Shortest Season in the Hedgerow

Elderflower is the most generous and the most fleeting of our wild flavours. In southern England the first creamy sprays open in mid-May; across the north and on higher ground you might still be picking in early July. Miss it and you wait another year. That urgency is part of the pleasure — a few weekends of sticky hands, warm afternoons and a kitchen smelling of Muscat and lemon.

Elder, Sambucus nigra, grows almost everywhere: hedgerows, railway embankments and the scrubby margins of commons and lowland heath. Look for it where the soil is rich and disturbed — the edge of woodland, an old allotment, the sunny side of a lane. Where heathland begins, elder usually stays at the boundary, hugging the better soil, so a walk across the heath often starts and ends with a bag of flower heads.

Picking Well and Picking Kindly

Go out mid-morning on a dry, sunny day, once the dew has lifted. Wet flowers lose their pollen and turn brown quickly, and rain washes out much of the fragrance. Choose heads with fully open, creamy-white flowers and a few tight buds still visible. Avoid anything brown, shrivelled or dropping its petals, which tastes musty.

• Snip the whole head close to where the flower stalk branches. Take no more than one or two heads from each bush so the tree can set berries for the birds in autumn.
• Avoid busy roadside verges, popular dog-walking routes and anything that looks sprayed or dusty.
• Small black beetles and flies are normal and harmless. A gentle shake or a brief soak in cold water sorts them out.

Keep the heads whole and cool until you get home. If you can't use them straight away, spread them on a tray and refrigerate for a day at most.

Elderflower Cordial: The One to Master

If you make only one thing, make this. It takes half an hour of actual work and gives you a litre or two of summer in a bottle.

• 20-25 large elderflower heads, freshly picked, stalks trimmed back but not removed
• 1.5kg granulated sugar
• 1.5 litres water
• 2 unwaxed lemons, zest pared in strips and juice strained
• 50g citric acid, from home-brew shops or pharmacies

Bring the sugar and water to a gentle boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then take it off the heat and let it cool to just warm. Add the flower heads, lemon zest and juice, and the citric acid. Stir, cover, and leave somewhere cool for 24 hours, or up to 48 hours for a deeper, slightly honeyed flavour. Any longer and it starts to taste cabbagey.

Strain through a double layer of muslin, without pressing the flowers, then bottle. It keeps for six weeks in the fridge and freezes beautifully in plastic bottles — leave headroom. Dilute one part cordial to five parts water or sparkling water, or use it neat to sweeten gooseberries, poach apricots or lift a gin and tonic.

Elderflower Fritters, Fried by the Bowlful

Fritters are the quickest way to eat elderflower rather than drink it, and they are best made outdoors on a camping stove, eaten within seconds of leaving the oil.

Whisk 100g plain flour with one tablespoon of cornflour and a pinch of fine salt. Add about 200ml of sparkling water or very cold lager and mix to a thin batter the texture of double cream — lumps are fine. Heat a pan of sunflower oil to about 180°C; a drop of batter should sizzle and rise within a second.

Holding each flower head by the stalk, dip it into the batter, let the excess drain, and lower it into the oil. Fry for a minute or so on each side until pale gold. Drain on kitchen paper, dust generously with caster sugar and serve with a squeeze of lemon. Eat them warm; they go soggy in minutes.

Delicate Desserts and a Few Other Tricks

The flavour sits well with cream, gooseberries, rhubarb and white chocolate. A gooseberry and elderflower fool is the classic: stew a punnet of topped and tailed gooseberries with two tablespoons of cordial and a little sugar until they collapse, then fold through whipped cream and crushed meringue. An elderflower panna cotta, made with cordial in place of some of the sugar, sets into something that tastes far grander than the effort involved. A sorbet — cordial, water and a little lemon, churned or simply frozen and forked through — is the best thing to eat on a hot June afternoon.

Two more to know:

• Elderflower vinegar: pack flower heads into a jar, cover with white wine vinegar and leave for ten days before straining. Wonderful on new potatoes and in salad dressings.
• Elderflower syrup: the same method as the cordial but with less water, kept in the fridge for cocktails and homemade lemonade.

After the Blossom: Heathland and Hedgerow in Turn

Elderflower marks a turning point in the foraging year. Once it fades, the heath takes over. Bilberries — whortleberries in the West Country — ripen on acid heathland through July and August, and ling heather comes into flower in late summer, both well worth the walk. Gorse, meanwhile, blooms for most of the year, and a handful of petals steeped in hot water makes a surprisingly good cup.

Treat your cordial and your fritters as a beginning rather than an end. Pick on a dry day, leave plenty behind, and let the season do the rest.