A delicious fruit cordial to make with any frozen or seasonal fruit to add to cocktails, sparkling wine, drizzled over pancakes or over yoghurt for those weekend breakfast feasts.

Use any fruit you like just use the ratios fruit to sugar to water as below and you can’t go wrong.

Plum, Blackberry and Lavender Cordial (makes around 300ml)

600g of soft fruit – blackberries, raspberries, whatever you like
1 scant teaspoon of dried herb – dried culinary lavender or whatever you like
150g golden granulated sugar
125ml water

In a saucepan add the fruit and water and slowly cook the fruit over a low heat for around 8-10 minutes until the fruit is soft. Using a fork, mash the fruit against the pain then cook for a further 15 minutes. Use a potato masher or the back of a ladle to really crush the fruit.

Add the lavender or whichever herb you are using and take off the heat to cool. Leave for around 30 minutes to an hour. Place a fine mesh sieve over another pan or bowl and pour over the fruit pulp. Leave for around an hour until all the juice has worked through and then push some of the remaining pulp through the sieve.

Add the sugar which is 150g for every 250ml of fruit juice. Don’t get too hung up on the ratio as it will all be good in the end. Then cook again, over a low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar on a simmer for 5 minutes. Once thick and syrupy, remove from the heat and pour into sterlised pots or small bottles.

You can freeze this in batches so you don’t waste any as it only lasts a few days in the fridge. I always like to get ahead for Christmas but unlike me, do label these as I always, always forget what’s what.

Variations:
Redcurrant, strawberry and lavender
Greenage, rapsberry and dried rose buds
Blackberry, raspberry, plum and bay