Elderflower Angel cake with Rose infused white ganache cream

If it had not escaped your notice The Great British Bake Off is back!!! How exciting i love this show and enjoy meeting each person and going on their baking journey with them, even if it is through t.v. The highs of star baker the lows of using salt instead of sugar or being that person that did not quite make it.  I marvel each and every week at how clever the ideas and how creative these people are and i one day aspire to be like them.

Gardening in June

Finally our Elderflower tree in the garden has bloomed no thanks to the pigeons who have been nibbling at the flowers.  Elderflowers are really great for making cordial and sorbet with i have attached some links below for recipes.

Elderflower cordial
Elderflower Sorbet


Our garden is blooming with clematis's at the moment and we have 3 types this lovely purple one which is a new feature for the garden, a Monanta which is is the pale pink one and we have a very old clematis that covers pergola which is the white one.

Another new feature for this year are these Red hot pokers but we have got the purple variety instead of the orange.

 These young blue iris are two years old now and are start spread and have gone from 1 head to 4 this year lets hope we get 8 heads next year.

 Another established plant in the garden is the spreading geranium Rozanna which is now starting to self seed over the garden.

In a weeder (on purpose)  part of the garden buttercups are going mad raising up bright yellow heads searching out that missing sunshine 

Lemon and Elderflower sorbet

This is a lovely snowball in a glass, fresh and light and a perfect dessert or treat for a nice sunny day and can also be eaten as an amuse bouche.  Not only is this unbelievable easy to make your have to stop yourself going back for seconds

Ingredients 
150g caster sugar
1 pint water
juice of 3 lemons
4 tbsp of elderflower cordial
1 egg white

place the sugar in a pan with 1pint of water to dissolve over a low heat and once dissolved simmer for 5 mins until your have made a light syrup. if you have a sugar thermometer it should have a temperature of 106c.

Allow the syrup to cool completely and stir in the lemon juice and cordial and freeze.

When frozen remove from the freeze and break up into chucks and add to a food processor with the egg white and process till smooth and then return to the freezer until frozen

If your making this at the right time of year and fancy making your own Elderflower cordial check out my post on how to make this  elderflower and lemon cordial this lasts all year long so its a great make for your store cupboard.

Elderflower and Lemon cordial

Every year we go out foraging for elderflower's and we usually pick enough to make champagne to last us all summer, however this year has just been awful with the weather with nothing but rain and it has put a real dampener on the foraging, especially as you need to pick the elderflower's when they have had a good mornings sun on the flower to make them taste so scrummy.


Ingredients
20 heads of elderflower's
3 unwaxed lemons
1 kilo of sugar
1 liter of boiling water
75g citric acid

Lucky for us we  have 1 elderflower tree in our garden that we use to help us tell us when is the right time to pick.  we also had 1 day of sun so i took advantage of this and picked 20 big heads of flowers to make some cordial.  Make sure you give the heads a little knock upside down to get rid of bugs but don't what ever you do wash them as your loose flavour.

First off i put 1 litre of boiling water in a pan and add 1 kilo of sugar and melt, i then zest 3 lemons and slice the lemons adding all into the boiled water.  i tend to leave this for about 1 hour just to cool a little and let the lemons seep a bit, after this i add 75g of citric acid and stir this in adding the elderflower's afterwards and give it a gentle stir then cover and leave for 24 hours.  I leave a wooden spoon out by the side and instruct everyone if they walk past give it a mash and a stir to help release the flavours.

After 24 hours of the elderflower and lemons doing their thing get ready by sterilising your jars that you want to put your cordial into, when sterilising you can either sterilise them in sterilisation tablets which we always have about as we make a lot of wine, or wash in hot water then place upside down in an oven and turn it onto 150c mines a fan assisted and when it comes up to temperature turn off the oven, where they will stay warm ready for you to use them, i wash my lids with boiled water from the kettle, or if i need just 1 or 2 i use the steam form a boiling kettle so careful not to scold yourself.  Also sterilise some muslin a jug and a sieve by pouring boiling water over them from the kettle.

With jars i'm a bit thrifty i re-use food jars and i don't see why not either, the jars are jolly useful and you have paid for them when you bought the food stuff that was inside them, and to me they are a valuable for all sorts of storage solutions. I even have a special cupboard in the garage where i store and save them up through out the year for projects like this.

Once your ready discard all the lemons and elderflower's which is pretty good to go on your compost heap.  Put your muslin inside your sieve and your sieve over your jug and pour the delicious elderflower and lemon cordial through this to capture any zest or stray flowers.  The use your jug to fill the jars make sure you fill each jar all the way to the top so there is no air. Pop the lids on and store in a cool dark place ready for when you need to use it.  We think it taste nice with sparkling water or Ali likes it with lemonade, its pretty nice in gin vodka and cheap white wine that you can turn into flavoured spritzers, you can even use it to make salad dressings and marinades for chicken.  It tastes so nice like a glass of summer and really refreshing.