Platter and more Elderflower

It is Elderflower cordial time again!  Check the link for elderflower cordial and champagne recipes.  This year I've made two big bottles and then I had about two cups left over and no storage bottle.  I had a brainwave and put it in a pot and boiled it down to syrup.  If you boil it until reduced by half you will have the most deliciously concentrated syrup.  I've frozen mine (well, it wont freeze because it is too syrupy but I am storing it in the freezer).  I'm going to use it to make gelato and to drizzle over sorbet.  You can also use it like cordial, with just the tiniest amount (about a teaspoon) generously flavouring a glass of water.

I'd love to access a Soda Stream and make fizzy elderflower cordial drink! I'll settle for bottled soda sparkling water.

Last year I made elderflower and lemonade ice blocks for the children.  The ice blocks were also very useful as emergency cold drink flavouring when we had summer guests and nothing fresh to offer!

I'm going to experiment with some other elderflower flavours now.  I'm curious about adding vanilla - I think it will be either very good or very bad.  Ginger comes to mind as well.  I use orange and lemons when making the cordial - but might look at changing the proportions around a bit.

I still haven't tried battered elderflower but I'm making cauliflower pakora tonight so I might have a go while I've got the oil heated.

Yum, it is so lovely to have so much elderflower that I can just experiment away to my heart's content!

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It is nearly the end of the school holidays and today my five year old and I had a special day off together.  With the two year old in creche and my husband at work we went off on a loosely planned 'day of trying new things.'  We went to playgrounds we have never stopped out, went op-shopping for dress ups and visited the Makara Wind Farm.  By the time we got back into town, picked up the two year old and caught up on chores it was late and dinner time.

I couldn't be bothered.

Then I remembered platters.

I was considering Fish 'n' Chips but given that lunch today was fruit and vegetable free I roused myself to something healthier.  With the two year old standing on her steps at the bench helping herself and being a general cute nuisance I did the old platter trick:

It took five minutes to make.  It would have been quicker if I hadn't used a bento food cutter to make a couple of carrot butterflies.  The breadsticks were a project with the two year old a couple of days ago.  I used a chocolate oatmeal stout beer that I'd been given at the International Chocolate Festival in a goody bag.  I don't actually drink beer, so can't comment on the drink itself. I can say that it made a fantastic flavour to pizza dough and when I made Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake last week it turned a great cake into some kind of in-your-face adult-only mud cake deliciousness. 

The photo was close to perfection: then the baby jostled me, the five year old reached across and I accidentally clicked.

I thought I'd taken a picture of elderflower but can't find it.  This is the girl's playing in cherry blossom a fortnight ago instead.