Category Archives: Dog Walks

Elderflower Cordial Part 1

Here we are in mid June.  What is in flower down in Zeb’s favourite woods?

The wild garlic has vanished and there are swathes of frothy cow parsley, icecream pink dog roses, sparkly blackberry blooms and the elders are full of ripening heads of fragrant baby stars.

This is the year I finally try to make elderflower cordial. My aunt Barbara, who lives on an island on Lake Mälaren,  Sweden, makes this every year by the gallon and supplies all her neighbours and people who visit the one shop on Adelsö get the opportunity to sample it too!

The elderflowers have heads of little tiny star like florets, they look a bit like stelline, and on a warm summer’s day you can follow that glorious fragrance to the source….

It makes sense to only take a few from each shrub or tree as the elderberries that form later are a valuable source of food for birds in the autumn. We asked our local parkkeeper who maintains these woods which belong to the Council if it was all right and he was happy for us to collect some flowers for our personal use.  We picked about half a bag, approx 25 flower heads,  in the end.

Avoid picking them where spraying has taken place or near a roadside if you can and make sure you can identify them confidently.  These woods are nowhere near farmland  and I am pretty confident they haven’t been sprayed. The books say pick on a warm dry day, and choose flowers which have a mixture of not quite open budlets and open flowers.

I have no idea how the commercial stuff is produced, or where the manufacturers source the huge quantities of elderflowers they must need…. Maybe there are armies of elderflower pickers all over the world stripping the woods bare..

More to come….

Click here for Elderflower Cordial Part 2

A green thought in a green shade

The trouble with doing eng lit at school is that bits of poems get stuck in your head for ever! Though I took this photo trying to capture the carpet of wild garlic flowers up every slope…

From: The Garden

by Andrew Marvell

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.

How does an elephant ask for a bun?

Elephant buns

with many thanks to Dan Lepard for teaching me how to make milk breads in the first place and for advice on UHT milk

Sponge

15 g fresh yeast
500 ml  UHT milk – at room temperature or slightly warmer
320 g strong white bread flour

Dough

All of the above plus
a dessert spoon of golden caster sugar
40 g of melted butter
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 medium egg
13 g salt
175 g chocolate chunks and chips
350 g strong white flour

1463 g dough in total

Mix the sponge 2 – 4 hours or so before you want to make the dough. I am currently using a very strong flour which seems to absorb a lot of liquid, you may wish to reduce the amount of milk in the sponge if your flour is not so strong or add more flour to the final dough.

When the sponge has risen and flowed gently all over the worktop, while you were out walking the dogs, scrape it back into a bowl, take a deep breath and add the melted and cooled butter and the egg, vanilla essence and a spoonful of sugar.

Mix these well and then add the rest of the flour, leave the dough to rest for 10 minutes.

Add the chocolate last to the dough; chips, chunks,  whatever you have, try and get them distributed evenly through the dough.

I don’t do intensive kneading if I can avoid it, only enough to make sure the dough is well mixed. Leave for half an hour, come back to it and give it another light knead, oiling the worktop lightly with oil if the dough is very sticky to make it easier to handle. You can do this again later if it makes you feel better, but I forget.

Total time for first prove is about one and a half hours.

Divide dough into 14 balls. You might need  a dusting of flour to help with this part.  Shape and place on baking parchment lined trays. Leave to rise for another hour. Cover the trays with either a plastic box or clingfilm or put them inside a carrier bag and prop it up with something.

Bake at 210 degrees C in an ordinary oven for 22 minutes till golden brown and sound good and hollow when tapped.  Cool on a wire rack,  and brush the tops with a glaze of 2 spoons of boiling water, 2 spoons of sugar and a teaspoon of Fiori di Sicilia ! The air will fill with the glorious perfume  of orange and vanilla and make you think momentarily of Jacobs Club Biscuits and school trips. Actually it’s better than that and a little goes a long way.  Thanks Lynne for that inspiring gift!     Enterprising importers and artisan baking suppliers please note we want you to stock this, please please please! You’ve got until Christmas to sort it out.

To print the recipe click here

I really adore these buns, they look like traditional english bread rolls, but they are soft and rich tasting from the addition of the egg and the butter and have  just enough chocolate in them and a hint of panetonne taste as you take the first bite!

I tell myself they are less fattening than croissants or pain au chocolat with its layers of buttery pastry,  but are still yummy enough to please a fussy elephant!

Answer:  ‘May I have a bun please?’ (muttered coyly from underneath a flowering dandelion :) )