Elderflower juice – Grandma’s recipe

After we were all gifted wonderful days of glorious sunshine, all farmers will surely have taken the chance for a good hay harvest. The dry weather is also ideal for harvesting herbs and making juices, including elder. The elder bush is one of my favourites: as tea, as a baked dessert, as jelly, as an addition to jams, or as elderflower juice.

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The Maurach Muata, my grandma, taught us a really good recipe that keeps well and is easy to make. I’m happy to pass the recipe on and wish you every success.

Elderflower syrup

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Homemade juices for breakfast!

Ingredients: 40 large elderflower heads (10 more is fine too), 4 l water, 6 kg fine granulated sugar, 6 organic lemons (washed well) or mix lemons with oranges, and 125 g citric acid. In dry weather—ideally around midday—harvest the elderflowers; I always pinch them off right after flowering so there’s hardly any stem on them. Put 4 l of water into a 10 l bucket or another clean container, add 6 kg sugar as well as sliced lemons and the citric acid, stir a few times, and finally add the dry elderflowers. Then stir well again. Every day (for 3–6 days) stir the juice at least once a day. If you stir several times a day and the juice already has a good flavour, you can bottle the elder juice after three days. Strain it through a sieve and a cloth and bottle into clean bottles. We only squeeze out the cloth at the very end and use this squeezed-out syrup (the “leftovers”) straight away for drinking. The filled bottles keep really well for a year or longer. We store them in the cellar; screw the caps on tightly. If you like, you can also briefly boil the elder juice and add a little preserving aid; however, the juice also keeps very well if it is made cold and everything has been done according to the instructions above. You get about 7 l of elderflower syrup from the amount above. Good luck—and have a lovely Sunday tomorrow!