Sweet Saturday: Elderberry Flower Pancakes

Pick the elderberry flowers, about 1 per 1-2 pancakes. Shake them well.
Make your pancake batter as your are usual.

Now first I tried to add the complete umbels, like this:

Looks nice doesn't it? The idea is to remove it carefully, the batter has to be dry by this point. It was tricky to get it out starting from the outside, working inwards before the other side of the pancake was burned. Also not all flowers stay behind in the pancake. Very fiddle work and not a lot of flavour.

So I picked all the flowers from the umbels and sprinkled those liberally over the pancake while the batter is still wet.













Turn as usual, eat like that or with an extra topping of ice, cream, suger, .... as I write I think lavender ice would be a great companion to these pancakes.

*** Bon apetit! ***

Note: while picking the flowers of the umbels, keep in mind a lot of pollen will escape covering your clothes in yellow dust.

Note: pick umbels which are in full bloom and dry, preferable after a few days of sun as they will be more fragrant and flavoursome :)

Sweet Saturday: Lemon Balm Syrup

Lemon Balm Syrup

I found the recipe here, but since that site is in Dutch I'll translate it here into English.

Pick some lemon balm (two hands full, make a cup with your hands and hold the leaves loosely). 

Rinse the lemon balm and put in a pot or glass bowl.

Boil 1 litre of water, add this to the lemon balm and leave it to infuse overnight. 

Take the leaves from the water and squeeze. Strain the liquid.

At 500 gr of sugar for every litre and heat until the sugar is dissolved. 

When all the sugar is dissolved and vapour comes from the liquid it's time to put it into clean bottles.

NOTE: I used cane sugar and only 400 gr, downside of cane sugar is that you loose the lovely fresh green colour, as you can see when you look at the bit which did not fit in my bottles, but tastes an smells just as yummy all the same :)

Dishwasher proof

Porcelain, especially some of my pieces, looks really delicate; people hardly dare touch it at fairs and markets. I than usually make them hold the object ;)

Porcelain is so much sturdier than your average ceramic, stoneware, pottery, ... To me that is the beauty of it, you can work very fine and still it will keep it's strength. Other clay would crumble when worked to such thin proportions.

And yes, it dishwasher safe too! Like my new line of butter dishes:

You can find them in my etsy shop, custom orders are welcome too.