Spreading the love for elderflower jam

Delicate yet fragrant elderflowers make a jam that tastes like an English summer-especially when married with gooseberries

- Tessa Waugh

A fragrant office: Elspeth Biltoft gathers the creamy elderflower heads that adorn the North Yorkshire landscape near her home.

THERE is a special point in an English summer, sometime close to midsummer's day, when the season is at its most beautiful. This is elderflower time, when creamy blossoms decorate the hedgerows like bridal bouquets in a sea of green.

Country people have a long tradition of harnessing these fragrant blooms to flavour jams and cordials and Elspeth Biltoft of Rosebud Preserves has more experience than most. When I visit Rosebud Farm, Mrs Biltoft's home and business headquarters in the village of Healey, North Yorkshire, she tells me about her childhood at Maske in Swaledale. 'I grew up helping my father make 'I love working along the hedgerows, watching the tortoiseshell butterflies and the shield bugs. It is everything the English countryside should be,' she enthuses.

We pass through a gate and into a field grazed by sheep. At the edge is a wood containing a deserted water mill and the holy grail: abundant boughs of elderflower swaying gently in the breeze. Mrs Biltoft gets to work quickly, deftly demonstrating her method of picking from the taller branches by drawing the boughs down with her walking stick. ‘Always pull gently at the end where it is more pliable, to avoid snapping the branch,' she emphasizes. 'You are looking for creamy whiteheads with a dusting of greeny-yellow pollen. That is where the flavour lies.'

Delicious all year round.