Bundles and Buttons: How to make elderflower cordial

After getting in after a busy day at school yesterday and realising I had a very busy weekend ahead of me, I decided that there was no time like the present and I had better get on and make my elderflower cordial otherwise all the flowers may be gone by the weekend and the heavey rain we have been forcast. So out I went and collected the flowers and decided to blog it so that you can have a go too. It is so so easy and straightforward and so satisfying once it's done. A delicious drink for the summer, and extra bottles can be frozen and used at a later date.

These are the ingredients you will need. Three (yes three!) bags of sugar, 62g of citric acid, which you can get from either a chemist or behind the customer service counter in Wilkinsons!

First you need to collect the elderflower, try not to pick anything too close to the road as it can collect the fumes etc Cut the heads off so all the stalks that make the flower are still intact otherwise you end up with lots of bits.
You will need one full carrier bag.

Put all the sugar and citric acid into a bucket-any will do so long as it is clean.

Add 6 pints of water and give it a good stir.

Nest, tip in all the flowers, don't worry about the bugs and bits, we will strain them out later.

Give it a good stir, and squash it all down.

Then cover it over and leave it for 24 hours to soak, stirring occcasionally. Try to scoop up all the suagr etc that may settle at the bottom.

After 24 hours, scoop out all the gunk into another container (or if you have one, get another clean bucket) Don't get rid of the gunky flowers, they will be squeezed later.

Here is the gunky flowers, you can squeese these out into the container with the juice in and then chuck them away.

Right, this is my makeshift strainer, find one old tea towel, preferably one used to polish glass....that type. Put the tea towel into a seive and then rest the seive over the bucket. then using a jug you can scoop out the liquid and pour it through your makeshift strainer. You may need to remove a build up of flowers every now and then to keep it flowing.