syrup Archives - Hedgerow Harvest

While Elderflower cordial is a very popular summer drink, both homemade and commercially produced, it is not the only cordial that can be made at this time of year. We made four in recent weeks.

Undiluted cordials. From left – Pineapple Mayweed, Hawthorn, Nettle. Missing from this photo is Pine Needle Cordial.

Nettle

I’ve eaten nettles many times in dishes such as soup and curry, and drunk them in beer and tea, but Nettle Cordial has been on my to-do list for a long time. For eating you want them young, using just the tips, but the ones I picked last week had gone to seed, and I stripped the leaves from the stems wearing thick gloves. I followed Robin Harford’s recipe on his Eat Weeds web site.

It takes a few days to steep and I was amazed at the flavour, this is straight into my list of favourites.

You can read an earlier blog post on nettles here.

Hawthorn

It’s probably too late for this year, but one to make next May. Delicate floral scents are difficult to capture into drinks, so I followed the Wild Flower Syrup recipe in John Wright’s River Cottage Handbook – Hedgerow. I’ve used this for Dandelion Syrup in the past (also very worth trying). You layer sugar and then flowers in a jug and leave overnight. Next day you add water in proportion to the amount of sugar you used (100ml water / 55g sugar) and heat until the sugar dissolves before straining and bottling. Again, very nice.

Pine Needle

This is an old favourite, I’ve written about before (here). You expect Toilet Duck but get a lovely citrus flavour.

Pineapple Mayweed

This was another new cordial to me. I know Pineapple Mayweed, no points for guessing what it smells of! The recipe I found online was:

1 pound pineapple weed heads
1 sliced lemon
2 pounds sugar
5 pints boiling water

Wash Pineapple Mayweed thoroughly…change water a couple of times
Mix everything together in a bucket
Cover with lid or teatowel
Leave for 4 days stiring twice a day
Pour into bottles through muslin

Best diluted 1/3 cordial to 2/3 sparkling water with a few ice cubes.

I did it in a slightly different order, covering the Mayweed in warm water, leaving it to soak, straining it, then adding the sugar / lemon and heatign it to dissolve the sugar.

It wasn’t my own favourite, but soem that tried it thought it was great.

Some of our local fields are a picture at the moment with carpets of Dandelions. They are an opportunity not to miss, plentiful and nearby. In your garden you might view them as a troublesome weed. The Victorians, however, cultivated them, with the leaves eaten by the wealthy in sandwiches and salads. I once met a young girl on one of our foraging courses who was in her element grazing on the leaves, preferring them to chocolate or sweets. Foragers will make use of almost every part of the Dandelion – roots (land owner consent required to dig up ANY wild plant), leaves and flowers. In this post we look at some Dandelion flower recipes and uses. Among the uses are:

Dandelion Syrup – (recipe below)
Dandelion Drizzle Cake – (recipe below)
Dandelion Fritters
First Flower Champagne
Dandelion Bhajis
Dandelion Jam / Marmalade
Dandelion (Dandy) Brandy
Dandelion Wine

Search online for recipes for the other suggestions.

Fields of Gold

Clip on Dandelions from the BBC Series Flora Brittanica.

Picking Dandelions

Pick on dry sunny day so the flowers are open and not wet.
People with sensitive skin may get contact dermatitis when touching the latex.
Your finger tips will go yellow, looking like you have a 40-a -day smoking habit!
Remove any stem you pick with the flowers as you go (saves time later!)
Pick a few here and a few there as they an early pollen source for bees and other insects.

Dandelion Syrup

The below recipe is taken from John Wright’s excellent River Cottage Handbook No 7 – Hedgerow. You can buy at a great price this here. Pick about a litre of flowers

Layer c. 2cm of flowers, sugar, flowers etc. in a large jug pressing down each layer (a potato masher does the job!). Note how much sugar you use.

Cover and let stand for 24 hours. The moisture and flavour will be drawn into the sugar.

Tip the contents of the jug into a pan and add 100ml of boiling water for each 55g of sugar.

Heat and stir until the sugar has all dissolved then strain into a clean jug.

The finished syrup. Store in sterilised bottles (dishwasher / or hot soapy water) or freeze in old plastic milk bottles. Dilute to taste.

Dandelion Drizzle Cake

A wild twist on the classic lemon drizzle cake combining the lovely flavour of dandelions with orange. Adapted from the lemon drizzle cake recipe in Pam Corbin’s excellent River Cottage Handbook No 8 – Cakes.

Preparation and cooking time – c. 1 hour

Ingredients:
For the cake

175 g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
175g caster sugar
175g unsalted butter cut into small pieces and softened
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
3 eggs
Petals from approx. 12 dandelions (remove all of the green parts).

For the drizzle:

Dandelion Syrup
Granulated sugar

Dandelion Drizzle Cake ingredients (plus syrup)

Equipment:

18cm round or 15 cm square tin, greased and lined with baking parchment, or a 1 litre loaf tin, approx. 20 x 10cm, greased, base and long sides lined with parchment.
Skewer
Cake cooling rack

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180^oC/Gas mark 4.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.
Add all the other cake ingredients and beat for about 1½ minutes, until you have a smooth think batter.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, levelling out the surface with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 40 – 45 minutes or until the surface is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Leave in the tin for about 10 minutes before turning out and placing on a wire rack.
Prepare the drizzle. Mix some Dandelion cordial with some granulated sugar. Do not let the sugar dissolve. Prick the surface of the cake all over with a skewer and carefully trickle the drizzle over the surface, a spoonful at a time, ensuring each addition has soaked in before spooning over the next.
The cake can be cooled fully or is delicious when still slightly warm. Serve with a little Dandelion Syrup infused natural yoghurt on the side.