Elderflower Champagne – an exploding success

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I am literally jumping up and down like an excited little girl. Why? I have just opened a bottle of my elderflower champagne, and it is fizzing. Yipeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

It just shows that looking at the bottle from the outside can be deceptive. No visible bubbles, and I was fretting about a fortnight ago that my first time experiment with brewing had failed. But oh no, when I opened a bottle POP! About a third of the contents just exploded out. Oh it is so refreshing with its soft bubbles. It tasted completely different to when I had bottled it, sweet, golden and like Muscat wine. Now, it reminds me a lot of 'real' lemonade in style, very carbonated and it does smell a lot like alcohol. I will definitely be making these again.

The greedy person in me would make some more now, as there are still some elderflowers about, but unfortunately I do not have any bottles and nor the storage space, so next year it will have to be.

Sorry no pictures this time, I just wanted to drink it.

The joy of elderflowers

During my lunch break, I sometimes go out for a brisk walk with a work colleague. We should do this more often, as we find ourselves spending our lunch time in the workplace doing more work, and that is no good for our mental well being. Our workplace is located near an industrial estate with a cemetery nearby, which we sometimes tend to cut through. We had not been our walks since I left for Paris, plus the rain over the past few days has been deterring us from leaving the building, until today when the sunshine decided to grace us with its presence.

Upon entering the cemetery we noticed how lush and green the trees were starting to look and the rhododendrons blooming in their many vibrant colours. As we turned the corner, a shimmer of glistening elderflowers caught my eye, and what was more brilliant the branches were within my reach. Yay, how could I resist. With help from my colleague, we managed to gather a bag full of elderflower heads and then walked back to work. I was feeling rather pleased with myself.

Now you know what I've been doing with myself this evening: the hard part was deciding between making elderflower cordial or elderflower champagne? Elderflower champagne it was. If it tuns out to be a success, I will share the recipe, so for now please be patient with me. It takes about three days to fizzle, then it has to be poured into bottles and left alone for two weeks before it can be consumed.
Note: the recipe was an explosive success.  Please follow here for the recipe.

While writing this entry it occurred to me that both my workplace and allotment site are within walking distance of cemetery. What a happy coincidence. I don’t worry about the dead; it’s the living that sometimes frighten me.

Respect the Elderflowers

I lived in Harlech, north Wales for about a year. It is one of the most beautiful places in Wales. I highly recommend it to anyone who plans to visit Wales to go there. One of my friends, Sue took me out foraging for elderflowers, so that she could make me some elderflower cordial as a parting gift. I was given two bottles. It was quite simple to make: just sugar, lemon, elderflower heads, water and patience for the flavours to meld for a few weeks, then strain and bottle up into sterilized bottles.

I am now seeing a lot of elderflower trees, every single tree seems to be out of my reach. I so want to make elderflower fritters and some of this cordial, maybe my 6 foot + husband will be able to reach some of these, let us see what happens over the next few days.

Another quick word on elderflowers, a few weeks ago I was watching a cookery show where they were reviewing some new gourmet foods, one of which was elderflower fudge, now that sounds truly delicious, but I think I have had my fair share of sweets recently.