Pancakes made with fresh flowers from the elderberry bush! I look forward to these pancakes every year! Sometimes I make them in the kitchen and other times when I'm out camping. Come into my post if you want to see how!
Whether you call them elderberry flowers, elder flowers, or elder blow, they all are great to eat! This post applies to the Common Elderberry of the eastern United States, the Blue Elder of the western US, and the Black Elderberry of Europe because that are so closely related that they were recently combined into the same species, Sambucus nigra.
1. Harvest the Elder Flowers
Elderberry bushes usually have lots of big flower clusters. So it doesn't take long to harvest enough flowerheads to use for a lot of different things. But it's important to harvest them at the right time. The flavor of the elderberry flowers does not come from the petals or nectar - it comes from the flowers' pollen! So it's important to harvest the flowerheads at the stage when the pollen is fresh, not before the flowerbuds open up and not after the pollen is gone.
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I like to use a lot of elder flowers fresh. A close look at the flowerhead shows it is made of lots and lots of individual flowers. But the green parts of elderberry plants are not good for anybody to eat, so I rub the flowers off the flowerhead. I do get a little bit of the green stems in there, but not enough to worry about. I also try to make sure the bugs and spiders escape.
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Stripping all the flowers from the flowerheads gives me time to wax philosophical. So there's some irony that gets served up with theses pancakes, and here it is: You can't buy these fresh elderberry flowers, but if you have access to an elderberry bush in the wild or tucked away in your landscape, you can pick all the flowers you want - for free!
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2. Make The Batter
This is a simple recipe, with just 3 ingredients other than the fresh elder flowers. And all these ingredients are things that are easy to come by on a car camping trip: eggs, flour -- and left-over beer! The fresh elder flowers keep well in the refrigerator for a couple days, so you can pick them one day and use them later. Some of the flowers get a little darker, but it doesn't matter.
I started with beating 2 eggs, adding 1 cup of flour, and then just balancing out the beer and elder flowers until I got the consistency I wanted for pancakes. I used about 2 cups of elder flowers. Don't skimp on them!
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You can use any pancake recipe that won't overpower the elder flowers. So, no buckwheat pancakes, no banana pancakes, and no pumpkin pie spice pancakes!
3. Cook the Pancakes
Now it's time to cook the pancakes! Just pour the batter onto a hot skillet - I like cast iron. It doesn't matter whether you make little pancakes or big pancakes.
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Just don't overpower the elder flower pancakes with a lot of complicated toppings. I'm just using simple maple syrup - real maple syrup! With homegrown black raspberries on the side. How does it taste? Really good! Elder flower pancakes taste a lot like pine pollen or cattail pollen. It's a clean, nutty flavor. Really special. I think anyone would like these pancakes!
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If you want to listen to my taste review or a narrated walk-through of making these great pancakes, this hot link will take you to my video on Making Elderberry Flower Pancakes.
Plant List
- Elderberry: Sambucus nigra
- Common Elderberry: Sambucus nigra subspp. candadensis
- Blue Elder: Sambucus nigra subspp. cerulea
- Black Elderberry: Sambucus nigra
What Do You Think?
I hope you get a chance to make some pancakes with fresh flowers from the black elderberry, the common elderberry, or the blue elder. It is so worth the effort! These three kinds of elderberry bushes are just out there growing on their own, anyway. The flowers just have to be harvested!
- Do you use Elder flowers for anything?
- Do you have any Elder bushes near you?
- Would you try my Elder Flower Pancakes?
- Which would you like to see next - How to identify and harvest elder flowers or how to make elder flower tea?
I write about foraging because I believe that we can all have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wilderness.
I would like Steemit to be the premier site for Foraging on the Internet! If you have any thoughts about foraging, or experiences to share, write a post and be sure to use the Foraging tag. And check out the @foraging-trail to see curated quality posts about foraging. Happy Foraging!
** Haphazard Homestead **
