How I came to make elderflower cordial

Wood pigeons like to land on the gooseberry bush, all staked and netted as it is, in search of fruit, but they only manage to break branches and make all the berries fall on the ground. I recovered a good bowl-full, but they are too hard to eat yet and too few for jam-making, so I thought I would cook them somehow, and like I discovered last year, elderflower cordial is an ingredient in most of the recipes... so I set about making some.

I made some last year too and I enjoyed drinking it over the summer.

There's plenty of recipes out there, with roughly the same ingredients but in wildly differing quantities: difficult to decide which is best, especially with regards to the use of chemical preservatives: citric acid use varies from 2 tsp to 75 g!

I have decided to try a variation on the BBC's recipe as follows:

• elderflower heads
• 500 g organic caster sugar
• 1 unwaxed orange
• 1,5 unwaxed lemons
• 1,5 l boiling water
• 50 g citric acid

I have not tasted it yet but it has been infusing for a day and smell deliciously citrussy, maybe a bit too much for an elderflower concoction...

PS Argh it IS DEFINITELY too citrussy, and not quite enough sugar! Why didn't I use last year's recipe in the first place?!?

PPS doubling the sugar and halving the citric acid does the trick
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