Using elderflowers

We are having rain on a regular base this spring, but I luckily found a long enough dry time to be able to harvest some elderflowers. Elderflowers have good properties (which you could look up some where else if you are curious) and we love the flavour it gives to the apple juice.

Processing the elderflowers is very easy.

Pick the elderflowers which just flowered, after dry wetter for at least 1 – 2 days. The best time for picking is after the dew dried. I checked every elderflower I picked for bugs and dirt and put them in a bowl.

I left the elderflowers somewhere protected for a few hours, so any bugs I missed while picking have the change to leave.

For drying, cut the bigger stems and divide the flowers over trays. I dried the elderflowers in the dehydrator at the lowest temperature (35°C) for about 10 hours. It took quite some time for the stems to dry as well. I should take more time for cutting the stems away next time, so there will only be the elderflowers with very small stems left. I store this in an airtight glass jar. We will use this for tee.

To infuse apple juice, I filled 2 big glass jars half way with the elderflowers and topped them up with apple juice from our own apples from last fall. I just left this in a dark spot (not the refrigerator) for about 24 hours.

Then it was ready to be strained and it smelled and tasted wonderful. Obviously we tried some juice immediately and I canned the rest to enjoy later. I canned it in a water bad by bringing it to a boil and let the water boil for about 15 minutes. I processed it for 15 minutes since I did not sterilize the jars first. Not sterilizing the jars first is something I do and not something you should copy. Most of the times this goes well, but sometimes we do lose produce.

Last time I made this I had the jar completely filled with the elderflowers and the result was way to strong in taste. We had to delude the elderflower infused apple juice to make the elderflower-flavour gentler.