The most delicious wild picking time of the year has arrived: elderflower syrup!

The elder trees around here are doing extremely well this year. With an hour of picking I had 500 grams of elderflower, good for 7 liters of elderflower syrup. Nowadays supermarkets also sell elderflower syrup, but making it yourself is so much tastier.

Collecting elderflowers is easiest with flower scissors. Be careful not to pick too much (no more than 10% of what is hanging and not all from the same bush) and avoid elderberries along roads and industries.

My recipe (for the enthusiast):

1. Remove as much of the stems from the blossom as possible, place it in a bowl or pan, cover the blossom with water and let it steep for 24 hours.
2. Throw everything through a sieve (first a coarse one, then a fine one) and collect the liquid in a pan. You can also use the blossom. dry and use in a scented pad.
3. Per 1000 ml elderflower liquid, add 1200 grams of granulated sugar and 30-35 grams of citric acid (to taste). Together this gives approximately 2000 ml of syrup.
4. Heat the mixture to boiling point, stirring frequently to prevent the sugar on the bottom from burning.
5. Pour the hot syrup into sterilized and preheated preserving jars (swing bottles).

Voila! Wonderfully refreshing syrup to drink as lemonade (especially with sparkling water!) or to pour over a dessert.