Preparation:
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. |
