New to cordial...

[glut]

I have never made cordial before, but this year am going to give it a go from my blackcurrent, blackberry, apple and plum crop. Is there a good site for a beginner that any of you can recommend? Also I was thinking about freezing the cordial in 'bars' to insert into fizzy water when wanted...do you think this will work or am I just showing my total ignorance ?

[SarzWix]

I've tried to make cordial 2 years in a row, with a mixture of fruit, and both times it has set like jam in the bottle Despite not boiling it at all, only warming the fruit enough to make the juice run, then putting it through a jelly bag and adding sugar. I've been told by a friend that blackberries cause this, so I'll try again this year without them

[smallblueplanet]

We made lovely blackberry cordial by the bottle load - here's the recipe:

Blackberry Cordial

1500g blackberries
cold water, to cover them (about 1lt of water per 1kg of fruit)
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp lemon juice
400g sugar

Pick over & wash the blackberries. Place in a pan and just cover them with water.
Boil them until they burst (mash them to assist juice extraction). Strain juice off fruit through metal sieve.

Put blackberry juice, sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon stick in pan. Bring to boil and simmer until sugar dissolves, and for about 20 minutes in total.

Cool. Sterilise bottles and decant.

[SarzWix]

Thanks for that Manda I've copied it, we'll give it a whirl this year. I think my recipe had more sugar than that in, more like half the weight of fruit, so that might be the thing that was wrong!

[glut]

The blackberry cordial sounds good, thanks Manda. Any other recipies out there?