Magical Elderberries

[Sleepy]

Basic Elderberry wine recipe

4lb Elderberries
5 litres (1 gallons) of boiling water
3 lb of granulated sugar
a 'claret' yeast sachet
8 oz chopped raisins
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 orange
1 vitamin B tablet
1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient


Procedure:
Strip the berries from the umbrells into a suitably large primary fermentation vessel with a fork.
Add 8 oz chopped raisins, juice of the lemon, juice of the orange, a vitamin B tablet and a teaspoon of yeast nutrient.
Add the boiling water and stir well.
When cool enough to handle, squeeze fruit with hands to extract juice.
Leave for one day to infuse.
Add 2 1/2 lb sugar and activated yeast and leave covered for three days.
Strain off liquid into demijohns, top up with another 1/4 lb of sugar in each and, if necessary, with cooled boiled water.
Leave to ferment in a warm (65-75 degrees), dark place.
Rack off the lees into a clean demijohn when bubbling has subsided.
Rack again 6 weeks later.
Bottle in dark green bottles when wine is clear (I use a desk lamp to shine through from the other side) and there has been no activity for some time.
Mature for at least 6 months before drinking.

[Sleepy]

Elderberry Mead Port (3 gal)

courtesy of Mr Ed Basham

10 lb. light clover honey
1 oz. tartaric acid
8 oz. dried Elderberries
1 yeast (EC 1118)

Procedure:
Bring 2 gallons of water to a boil in a stainless or ceramic pan and remove heat source.
Add tartaric acid and honey, stir gently to dissolve.
Depending on how the honey was processed, there may be wax and protein substance that will collect at the surface. Gently skim anything that appears, using a screen spoon.
Cover and allow to cool to 85f. Pour this into a 3 gallon carboy, add yeast and attach air lock.
Allow to fermentation to proceed for two days before adding elderberries.
Do a quick cold water wash on the dried elderberries using a large fine screen strainer.
A lot of liquid which appears brown will pass through. Put the rinsed elderberries in the carboy using a funnel.
Rack once about 4 weeks into the fermentation discarding the elderberries.

[Sleepy]

Pontack Sauce

1 pt. Claret
1 pt. Elderberries (destalked)
1 tspn salt
1 blade of mace
40 peppercorns
12 cloves
1 onion (finely chopped)
A little ginger

Boil the claret and pour over the elderberries in a large casserole dish. Cover and put in a VERY low oven overnight. The next day pour off the liquid into a saucepan and add the salt, the mace, the peppercorns, the cloves, the onion and the ginger. Boil for 10 minutes and bottle in sterile bottles with the spices.

Keep for at least 1 year, preferrably several years.

It has a fruity taste and goes very well with liver.

[Sleepy]

Elderberry Cordial

Elderberries (still on stalks)
Sugar
Cloves

Pick the fruit on a dry day and stew with the stalks in a large stainless steel saucepan, with just enough water to cover.

Strain through muslin squeezing to get all the juice.

To each pint of juice add 1 lb of white granulated sugar and 10 cloves.

Boil for 10 minutes.

Allow to cool and bottle in sterile bottles with good quality plastic screw-on tops making sure you distribute the cloves evenly amongst the bottles (they act as a preservative).

The cordial can be used immediately, and will keep well for a year or two.

Taken with hot water it is renowned as a guard against colds, and a glass a day through winter is a wise precaution..

[Sleepy]

Elderberry Ice cream

By John Kennett
Elderberries (destalked)
Sugar
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Double cream
2 Egg whites

First pick your elderberries. The easiest way is to snip off whole bunches, and then strip the individual berries off using the prongs of a fork at your leisure. I picked about half a carrier bag of bunches, which came out to a big saucepan of berries.

Put the berries into a saucepan with a little water, a sprinkling of sugar and the juice of half a lemon. Go steady on the sugar, you can always add more later if you need to.

With a lid on the saucepan, gently simmer for about 45 minutes, or until the berries have gone very soft. Leave to cool, and then push the berries through a sieve, discarding the pips that remain. This will leave a rich elderberry syrup. Taste it, and add more sugar if required. As a guide I had about a pint of syrup at the end.

Whip half a pint of double cream until it stands in peaks, and in a separate bowl whisk two eggwhites until they are stiff enough to tip the bowl upside down. This can be quite a feat with a hand whisk!

Fold the cream, eggwhites and elderberry syrup together gently, until the whole mixture is a uniform lurid purple. Pour into a suitable freezer container - I used a pyrex glass bowl. Then stick it into your freezer.

[Sleepy]

Watermelon and Elderberry wine

from Jack Keller
6-1/2 lb watermelon
1/4 lb dried elderberries
water to 1 gallon
juice and zest of 2 lemons
5-2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 crushed Campden tablet
1 tsp yeast nutrient
wine yeast

Cut the rind off of melon, cut melon into one-inch cubes, remove loose seeds, and put melon and any free juice in primary (crock, plastic pail, etc.).

Grate the yellow thinly off two lemons, then juice the lemons and add the juice and zest (gratings) to primary.

Add dried elderberries, pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient.

Add water to make up 1 gallon. Stir in sugar and stir well to dissolve.

Cover primary with cloth, wait 12 hours and add wine yeast.

Cover and ferment 3 days, stirring daily.

Strain juice into secondary (demijohn) and fit airlock.

Ferment 30 days and rack, topping up with water into which 1/3 cup sugar has been disolved.

Add one crushed Campden tablet, refit airlock, and rack every 30 days for 6 months.

Stabilize (1/4 tsp potassium sorbate and another crushed Campden tablet) about a week before bottling.

Allow to age at least 6 months in bottles, but improves with additional age. .

[Sleepy]

Elderberry Syrup

Take ½ gallon elderberry juice and put into pan, add a well beaten egg white.

When it boils, skim any froth that rises.

To each pint add 1lb sugar, boil until syrupy. Bottle when cool. Use for colds.

[debbiem]

Brilliant recipes Sleepy. I'll remember they're on here.

[madmonk]

Have made the wine and cordial, if the wine turns out anything like the cordial then i will be pleased

[Sleepy]

madmonk said:

Have made the wine and cordial, if the wine turns out anything like the cordial then i will be pleased

Oh, the wine should be far better than the cordial. I find the cordial too medicinal tasting for me - all the cloves dontchaknow. Connie liked it though.