With summer finally gracing us with her presence, I am eagerly anticipating spending several afternoons, when the sun is shining, gathering elderflowers to make cordial and hopefully elderflower champagne, which our colleague Simon (of Simons lemoncello cake ) has very kindly given us a recipe for.
Apparently, the trick for gathering elderflowers is to wait for a really sunny day, so the flowers are fully open, before going to pick them. It is the first time I will be attempting to make both; so I will let you know how they turn out.
Until I am lucky enough to have some of the homemade cordial to use in this recipe, the supermarket does stock some lovely brands of the syrupy goodness in the juice section.
I have chosen to serve these as mini desserts; the prep is simple and can be done a day in advance, but you could also serve this as one large tart. Simply blind bake your pastry in your desired tart tin, before making up half of the apple/elderflower mixture below. Meanwhile, finely slice an additional 3 -4 apples, before following step 4 below.
I cheated and used store-bought pastry, but there is a great pastry recipe here if you have the time.