The following recipe yields to about 2.5 liter of Elderflower syrup.
Ingredients
You will need the following ingredients:
- about 30 panicles of Elderflower (about 200 grams)
- 2 kg of (organic) sugar
- 1.5 liters of water
- 1/2 (organic) lemon
- 1/2 (organic) orange
- 30 grams of citric acid
- swing top glass bottles or other suited containers
- a lot of time
Hints
The following hints might be of interest for you:
- In western Europe Elderflowers can normally be picked at around the second half of May or beginning of June. You might want to google the best picking time for your region though.
- Some recipes suggest not to wash the Elderflowers before usage because they might loose some of their taste. However, I prefer to wash them in order to remove things like spider webs, small insects or other things that are stuck in the panicles. To get the best taste I just increase the amount of Elderflower in my recipe. Anyway, 200 grams of Elderflower is just a rule of thumb. You can change that amount to your liking.
- Lemons and oranges are optional ingredients. Use them as you like. I would suggest to use organic products because you will use slices of the whole fruit (incl. the fruit skin). If you prefer you can replace the fruits slices with a few squeezes from the fruits.
- The availability of citric acid might depend on the country where you live. In some countries citric acid is available in supermarkets. In other countries you might have to go to a drugstore or a pharmacy to buy it.
- At the end of the process you will have to strain the syrup to remove all the remaining blossoms and pollen. I use a big sieve and some plain kitchen paper (without decorative prints) to get a thorough result. This can be a dedious slow process… 🙁
- The syrup can be kept for at least half a year. A cool and dark room is the best storage option. However, as it is an untreated food fungi and moulds can occasionally thrive. Therefore, I recommend to use small storage containers, such as 0.5 liter swing top bottles. Should you have to dispose the syrup of one bottle you only loose half a liter and not a liter or even more.
- As mentioned swing top glass bottles are a good option to store the syrup. Fill in the syrup when it is still hot and close them immediately. If you want to use old PET bottles just keep in mind to cool down the syrup before filling it into the bottles. Otherwise the PET bottles will become deformed by the hot syrup.
- Nutrition Facts: 100 ml of syrup contains about 72 grams of carbohydrates whereof 72 grams are of sugar (~ 288 kcal). One portion of 40 ml syrup mixed with 260 ml of water contains around 115 kcal.
Recipe
- Put the water in a big pot and heat it up.
- While heating up add the sugar to the water and stir gently until it is fully dissolved. Then let it cool down for about an hour.
- Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients by removing the stalks from the Elderflowers and slicing the lemon and the orange.
- Add the Elderflowers, the lemon and orange slices as well as the citric acid into the sugar water and stir well.
- Cover it and let it rest for at least overnight. Alternatively, to get a more intensive taste let it rest for 48 hours and stir from time to time.
- Remove the Elderflowers and the slices before straining the syrup (see above).
- Bring the syrup to a brief boil before filling it into bottles.