Elderflower and rose cordial

What a scorching few weeks we’ve just had! To me, summer officially begins when the wild elderflowers are in bloom.

I’ve long wanted a sambucus nigra – or black elder – for the garden; it’s just that little bit more exotic looking than the usual type. What luck, I discovered that there’s one here in our new garden – and it’s a good size too!

As well as the elder, we have at least a dozen rose bushes; that’s when I decided this year, I’ll make elderflower and rose cordial.

The colours and scents of the elderflowers, rose petals and lemon peel give the cordial a fresh, fragrant, summery look & flavour.

I’d never attempted a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe before; they’re usually quite involved and require ingredients that aren’t the easiest to get hold of… pomegranate molasses, anyone? This one, for me anyway, is doable; florets of elderflower, petals from a single rose, a couple of lemons and caster sugar… that was it! The other great thing about the recipe was it makes less than a litre of the stuff; I find it much easier to double or triple up a recipe than to halve or quarter it. Or is it just me? How do you divide an egg by four?

Anyway, this will be an annual early summer ritual for me from now on. It’s gorgeous – a glug in a glass of fizzy water loaded with ice or a splash in a gin & tonic. I’m going to make some more before the elderflower season is over… I’m hooked!

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Elderflower and rose cordial

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Course Drinks

Cuisine British

Servings 800 ml

Ingredients

100 g elderflower heads about 12 heads, gently rinsed
Shaved skin of 2 small lemons
1 small red rose petals picked (about 20 petals)
500 ml boiling water
325 g caster sugar
125 ml lemon juice

Instructions

Put the elderflower in a large bowl with the lemon skin and rose petals. Pour over the boiling water and press down the florets, making sure they’re submerged. Leave to cool, then cover the bowl and leave to infuse at room temperature for about 36 hours.
Strain the infusion into a medium saucepan, pressing against the flowers with the back of a spoon, to release all the liquid, and discard flowers, branches and rose petals. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the infusion, then turn on the heat to high and cook for three to four minutes, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved, and the liquid is starting to simmer. Take off the heat, leave to cool, then pour into a sterilised bottle, seal and store in the fridge.

Elderflower and rose cordial ingredients

The cordial keeps in a sterilised bottle in the fridge for at least a month.

Keyword elderflower, elderflowers, forage, rose

Mocha dalgona

Apparently, there’s a South Korean coffee drink that’s currently a social media sensation! It was only when it found its way on to the BBC website that we got to find out about it. Always late to the party, but hey… we’re here!

The beverage in question is called dalgona coffee, named after the Korean version of honeycomb toffee aka Crunchie here in the UK. My version is mocha dalgona, where I substituted half the coffee with cocoa powder.

There are only 4 ingredients – that you’re likely to have in your post-Covid lockdown food cupboard; coffee, cocoa, sugar and milk.

The knack to the drink is in beating the hell out of the topping so it’s light and airy as a cloud and forms soft peaks.

The mixture is spooned on top of hot or cold milk (or any vegan alternative). It’s sweet, rich and intense; use decaf coffee if you’re worried about it giving too much of a buzz!

It would also work really well spooned on top of an ice cream float or sundae.

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Dalonga mocha

2020-04-02 12:56:30

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 tbsp instant coffee/espresso powder/granules
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsps brown soft sugar
2 tbsps hot water
2 glasses of cold milk (leave 1cm/⅓" gap to rim)

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Instructions

Put all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl
Pour over the hot water and begin to beat by hand using a balloon whisk - try to get as much air into the mixture as possible
Mix until peaks begin to form (as much as 5 minutes... it depends how many breaks you need to give your wrist and biceps!)
Spoon the mocha mixture equally over the glasses of milk

Notes

This can be made with either hot or cold milk; use cows' milk or soya, almond, oat, coconut milk for a vegan option

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Simple sloe gin recipe

The first frosts hit this part of the country this week, I’ve been eagerly awaiting them. No, I’m not a great fan of chilly weather, I’ve just had my eye on a few little blackthorn bushes that grow along our lane.

Blackthorn berries (prunus spinosa) – better known as sloes – are the important ingredient in that Christmastime favourite, sloe gin. Back to those frosts… it’s recommended that you pick them after a spell of freezing temperatures, as this swells the berries and makes their skin split. If you don’t want to wait, you’ll need to prick each berry with a pin or skewer before steeping them in the gin. Letting the cold weather do the hard work is my preferred method!

Conveniently, for this post, we had half a bottle of Hortus gin left over from those almost forgotten summer gin & tonics. That’s just the right amount for the number of sloes I was able to forage – about 150 grams.

You add half the weight of sloes in sugar; i.e. 75 grams of sugar to 150 grams of berries. The amount of gin you add is much more flexible. Countryfile Magazine recommends 500 grams of sloes to a 70cl bottle of gin, River Cottage say around 325 grams per bottle and The Guardian 350 grams. The ratio that I used was about 300 grams to a bottle.

My sloe gin may just about be ready to crack open at Christmas. Next Christmas – or even the Christmas after that – is optimal time for the fruit to infuse with the alcohol.

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Simple sloe gin

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Course Drinks

Cuisine British

Ingredients

150 g sloes
75 g caster sugar
35 cl half a bottle London dry gin

Instructions

Sterilise a bottle or Kilner/Le Parfait preserving jar
Rinse, drain and pat dry the sloes
Add the sloes, sugar and gin. Seal the cork/cap/lid and swirl the contents together for 30 seconds or so. Set aside in a cool, dry, dark spot
Each day for about a week, swirl the contents together for 10 seconds or so. Once all the sugar has completely dissolved, you can strain to remove the fruit and store the sloe gin (for years... if you can resist the urge to crack it open!)

Keyword alcohol, forage, gin, sloes

Why a wine cellar adds value to your house

Wine has become the beverage of choice for the people who love their liquor and one of the most favourite drinks internationally. Wine collecting is a hobby for many individuals around the world and one of the primary reasons why some home-buyers prefer houses with wine cellars, there are also accolades associated with wine such as the ‘Master of Wine’ award. People who love wine, want to store their wines correctly and also display their wines in areas in their homes, which is why, if you have the space you should consider a wine cellar.

Things change from time to time and, if you decide to sell your home some time in the future, a beautiful and well-constructed wine cellar will undoubtedly add financial worth to your home.

Home-buyers who are already in the market for new homes with wine cellars will make a beeline for your property when it comes on the market. You’ll be able to call the shots in terms of pricing since you’re sure that your home is exactly what these home-buyers need at that point. A dedicated wine storage room can add anywhere from £10-20,000 to the value of a house, depending on how it’s been constructed and its size. This makes financial sense when thinking about installing a wine cellar as it will more than pay for itself since you also have the opportunity to store hundreds, if not thousands, of wine bottles until you move house.

To build or install a wine cellar in your home isn’t rocket science; in fact, it’s not even as complicated as you’ve been made to believe. Several options are open to you when it comes to building the wine cellar that will boost the resale value of your home in years to come. You also have lots of wine rack choices, stain choices, wine accessories, add-ons etc. available for you to choose from at any time.

So, all you need to do is to pick yourself up and visit any of the numerous DIY shops as well as hardware stores that sell ready-made kits that you can use for building your wine cellar. This is an excellent option for you if you’re a DIY fan and you have a pretty low budget.

However, the best thing to do when you’ve made up your mind to add a wine cellar to your beautiful home is to seek the help of certified wine cellar construction company. There’s nothing more heart-warming that sitting back and relaxing while a team of building professionals goes to work in your house.

Not only is this incredibly convenient, but you’ll also be able to chip in your thoughts or plans about the design of the wine cellar while these professionals – with years of building wine cellars under their belts – can advise you accordingly; it’s just like designing a new kitchen!

Nevertheless, whether you choose to build the wine cellar yourself or hire the services of professional wine-cellar builders to do it for you, you’ve made an excellent decision by making up your mind to add a room or two in your house for your priceless wine collection.

Of course, although your primary intent for constructing a wine cellar may be for your personal enjoyment, the resale value of your house will increase significantly, thanks to the existence of the wine vault.

There are lots of options to think about when designing a wine cellar, for examples the racking, humidity and temperature equipment as its critical the wines are stored correctly to make this project viable. One of the most common additions to a wine cellar, which may seem odd, is a wine cooler or wine cabinet. These are used primarily to bring a small selection of wines that are ready to drink to their optimum service temperature. If you’re going to invest in a wine cooler, its best to buy a high quality unit like the range from Elite Wine Refrigeration, as not only will this help save the planet but it will also ensure your wines are stored correctly with less of a chance of a break down which may sour the wines.

Once the wine cellar is constructed, allow the room to run at its set temperature correctly for a period of time to ensure there aren’t any unforeseen breakdowns which may damage your wines.

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