Selfsufficientish.com

I braved the near gale force winds this morning and picked my first ever batch of Elderflowers, a carrier bag full, which I really enjoyed doing. Got them home, and picked off enough flowers from the stalks to make two gallons of wine, which I did. I've put the rest on trays to dry in the shaded greenhouse. I had intended to make cordial, syrup and turkish delight, but the smell of the flowers has put me off a bit! I mean, they stink! How can anything smelling like that taste good? Is it just me? I keep reading how delicious all these concoctions are, so I'm hoping they don't taste the same as the flowers smell! Does anyone else think they smell rank?

They smell like cats pee! But rest assured they taste great as elderflower fritters, or in cordial, champagne form...dont be put off! I was always told that they are best picked in the midday sunshine, where was it today??

Don't worry, we have discussed this several times on the forum. Do a forum search for elderflowers and cat pee as the key words.

I think you have to process the flowers straight away otherwise they do turn from sweet smelling to peepee smell very quickly - and also when you are out and about picking, you can smell a couple and they smell divine then all of a sudden something happens in your nose and the rest smell vile!

Oh goodness there are more discussions that I'd thought as I've only looked at the cordial threads not the wine threads!

I'll let you trawl through the various threads but here's a summary of what came up in the search:

http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... mit=Search

Thanks Milly, I see I'm not alone!
I dried what I had left on trays in the greenhouse (shaded from the sun), and they smell rather nice once dry., but does anyone know what proportion to fresh I should use?

I don't know - I've never dried any, only used fresh.

1 pint of fresh elderflowers equals 1 oz (28 grams) dried.

Although I couldn't absolutely swear to that

Mike

need to use striaght away or you do get that cat pee smell

but can dry them very quickly preserve the best flavour in a mirowave just spread thinly on plate and zap for 10 second at a time until dry
this work with all herbs to

Is it to late to pick elderflower now? Read somewhere that end of May and start of june are best times