hello this is angela with parkrose permaculture it is a very warm sunny afternoon here in portland
oregon unseasonably warm and i am tending to one of my favorite garden culinary tasks now
in permaculture we it with any gardening we have to follow the seasonality of the year
we have to work with nature with how she is progressing and when she is presenting
things to us at the peak of ripeness the peak of flavor and that isn't always on our schedule so i
had other plans for this weekend but if i don't take care of this job right now i'm gonna miss
my window of opportunity so today my garden task is to make elderflower syrup and i will use this
in drinks where i mix it with bubble water or i make a cocktail and i can make a sorbet with it
it has all of that essence of the flavor of spring all of those floral notes there's nothing like
elderflower syrup and it's only available to make for a short period of time in the spring when the
elders are in bloom now i grow while i used to grow three different kinds of elders two black
elders and one blue elder let's talk about those briefly because if you want to make elderflower
syrup and elderflower cordial pretty much the only way to do that is to grow your own elders
so elderberries are obviously a well-known culinary and medicinal crop black elders sambucus
[ __ ] are native to europe and i grow two types nova and york they are well known commercial
consistent producers of large elderberries with good flavor there is a lot of diversity of aroma
and flavor among black elders much like if you grow apples from seed you don't know what kind
of apple you're going to get off of it the same thing with elderberries they can have notes of
coffee all the way to licorice all the way to kind of insipid flavors to obviously that unique
characteristic elderberry taste if you grow a york or a nova you will get that
taste for which the elderberry is known for the two varieties that i have that are black elder
they grow in my shade woodland garden let me show you what they look like in the context of this
garden now i personally when i planted these i was told they would top out at eight to twelve feet
they are incredibly happy and personally if i had to do it over again i would pick a
different spot to grow them because i know they encroach over the fence onto my neighbor's yard
they're so happy they are huge despite yearly pruning let me show you what they look like
do
so as you walk through that woodland garden the aroma of those elders in flower is just
wow i grew them specifically in this space because i knew they would produce in shade but
also because um the two larger bedrooms that we have on the first floor are on that wall and so in
the springtime you sleep with the windows open and the aroma of elder flowers wafts in on the evening
breeze and it's just so soothing and so wonderful and there's nothing like it so when i plant
for my permaculture design i am often thinking about experiences beyond just the yield of food
the yield of the sensory aromatic experience of an elder is absolutely worth having in your garden
that is a yield you cannot produce anywhere else except in the home garden now i also used to grow
way in the back of my garden back here back by my chicken coop the native blue elder which is
sambucus [ __ ] subspecies cerulea or sometimes categorized as its own separate species sambucus
cerulea they produce much larger hands of very large berries that have what's called a bloom on
them much like a blueberry has a it's truly like almost a black berry but has a white bloom on it
the sambucus cerulea is the same it's a blackberry with a white bloom that gives it a blue cast
i personally think sambuca cerulea has a superior flavor it produces extremely large hands of
flowers and fruit the reason that i don't grow it anymore is that when i ordered it from the catalog
it right off the bat i think came from the nursery with elderberry cane borer and it has
struggled with dieback every single year and when i prune it i can see that it has cane borer
so i ultimately last year took it out and i'm going to be replanting another one now i don't
go out near the house because sambuca cerulea gets to be 25 feet tall it is what i would call in my
garden where i keep everything diminutive i would call it an over story shrub so for this recipe
i'll put the recipe in the description you're going to need 15 hands of elder flowers okay
and they just they smell amazing and that aroma will get transported into the syrup that you're
going to make so just oh so great cannot overstate how much i love having elderflower cordial so when
harvesting your blossoms you want to clip the hands about like this now elder flowers
are safe to eat when made into fritters or in cordial things like this but the roots
stems branches and leaves and seeds of the elder all contain cyanogenic glycosides
they can make you quite sick if you consume a lot of them so be sure that when you are cooking your
elder flowers you are not including any of the woody stems in fact if you want to be extra
careful i tend to take my hands and pinch them off until these little sections like this and avoid
using any of the stem so i will discard this part after i've clipped it off the tree this will go in
the compost and these will go into my syrup now cooking helps render the elderberries much more
edible for humans and they have lots of beneficial medicinal qualities but you just want to remember
you don't want to consume the raw stems with your flowers and you don't want to consume the raw
seeds or juice that has been juiced with the stems so after i take my elderberry hands and i clip
off the extra stems here i want to rinse these because sometimes there might be aphids in them
there might be the occasional little spider or just dust so you want to pinch all of these off
and then rinse them in some ice water and then we'll be ready for the next step to make this
syrup you're going to need sugar water you'll need lemons these are from my meyer lemon tree
and lemon juice you can scale this recipe up or down please look at the ratios in the description
now if you don't have extra lemon juice some folks use citric acid powder i prefer because
i have an abundance of lemons on my lemon tree to just use what i have on hand and not go out
and purchase anything else so first you need to boil your water in this case i used four cups
of water and three cups of sugar and you want to make a syrup so i have that here
very hot
now if you want to you can boil the lemons with the sugar and the water i have found it really
hasn't added or taken away from the flavor because this is going to steep together for 48 hours
anyway so i have all of my lemons added to my sugar water i want to add my lemon juice so to my
scalding hot bowl of lemons sugar water and lemon juice i'm going to add all of my elder blossoms
now it may seem like you need to add a lot 15 elder flowers for four cups of water is quite a
lot but if you look at my elderberry plants there are hundreds and hundreds of hands of flowers
right now each of my elderberries the last few years has produced more than 20 pounds of fruit
each so there's no shortage of yield for me by taking some and making elderflower syrup i'm still
getting far more elderberries i usually share them with friends then i could possibly consume myself
keep in mind that the elderberries themselves freeze really well you can dehydrate them which
also helps break down the cyanogenic glycosides in them by the same token you can freeze this cordial
when you are done into ice cube trays and then it's great to add to a glass
of scotch in the evening or to make into recipes later in the year it will keep
for four to six weeks in the refrigerator as is but i try and make enough to freeze
half and that way i can use it later in the heat of summer
there's nothing like having an elderflower cordial come august on a hot hot august evening
so i have my elder flowers added here i don't know if you can see my hands are covered in
pollen cover this with a plate or a towel and let it sit in the kitchen for 24 hours and
then i want to put it in the fridge for another 24 hours i want to give a long time for those
flavors to marry together to meld together and then i'm gonna strain it and i'm gonna put it into
a jar and keep it in the refrigerator for four to six weeks the finished product should be aromatic
the lemon will add brightness and a slight yellow color to the finished cordial now you
also could take this and add a significant amount more sugar and make a thick syrup from the get-go
i prefer to keep it a little bit less than a simple syrup ratio and that way it's not so sugary
that i can't just add a little bit of bubble water but really you're welcome to play around
with the ratio of water to sugar it's not crucial because we're not canning this product so whatever
works for you is going to be the right recipe but for me i will post my recipe
down in the description below i've been making this for 12 years every spring
sharing it with friends enjoying it fresh or frozen all season long so thank you for watching
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