  | Elderberry Cordial | |||
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Elderberries are one of the best sources of vitamin C around & taste great in this cordial, which has a lovely spicy, Christmassy flavour as a result of the cloves which are used as a preservative. It's good hot as well as cold and is very easy to make. The recipe below makes about 4 litres. You will need:
Wash the bunches of berries thoroughly to remove insects and dirt, then put them in the pan and add enough cold water just to cover the berries. Bring the whole lot slowly to the boil & simmer for about 20 minutes until all the berries are soft. Stir now & again - making sure the berries are well squashed. Line a plastic sieve with a muslin or cotton cloth and strain the resulting juice, squeezing to get all the juice out. Measure the juice into a clean saucepan & for each 500ml of juice add 500g of sugar and 10 cloves. Boil for this liquid for 10
minutes and then pour the cordial into sterilized
bottles (we use old clip top beer & olive oil bottles that we
have saved for the
purpose), distributing the cloves between the bottles. | ||||
2
carrier bags full of ripe elderberry 'bunches' (they are ripe when they
droop downwards). Remove the leaves but don't worry about the
stalks.