BLUEBERRY & ELDERFLOWER DRIZZLE BARS

I bought a blueberry bush full of berries this summer, and immediately had grand plans of cooking with my future blueberry harvest. Unfortunately, I'm not the best gardener, so sadly these blueberry and elderflower drizzle bars were not made with blueberries from my own garden. I'm definitely improving my gardening skills though, and it's now been a very long time since I actually killed a plant (not counting the very sad looking coriander plant that's currently sitting on my kitchen window sill, not sure there's much hope for that one).

My garden actually had a blueberry bush in it before, but one day my mother dug it up and moved it to my parents' cottage. I can't really object—it's their garden after all, but the fruit bearing plants in the garden are my favorite, so I was very excited about buying a new blueberry bush to replace it. I headed to my local garden center, bought a bush full of soon-to-be berries, dug a hole and plunked it in. It looked great. For a couple of days. Then the leaves started shrivelling up and going brown. My soon-to-be berries fell off. My blueberry bush looked about as unhappy as a blueberry bush can be, and the chances of it yielding any berries at all this year seemed to grow smaller by the minute. I asked my green thumbed mother about it, who told me I probably should have let the bush soak in a bucket of water, so that it was properly watered before I planted it. All I could do now was keep watering it and hoping it settled in and didn't die. And while my poor blueberry bush was looking like it might not survive at all for a long time, I am very happy to say that is now almost completely green and looking much happier! It's even still got a couple of berries on it, though not really enough to cook anything with (it had three, then I came along and now it has two).  Now I am very much looking forward to making these blueberry and elderflower drizzle bars with blueberries from my own garden next year. Alternatively, I might need to drag Graeme to the mountains for some blueberry picking once the season starts.

Blueberry & Elderflower Drizzle Bars:
2 large eggs
175 g caster sugar
150 g butter, melted
250 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
75 ml milk
zest of 1 lemon
175 g blueberries (plus extra for serving)
Elderflower syrup

Direction: Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Mix together eggs, sugar and butter in a bowl until combined and fluffy. Fold in the flour and baking powder, and mix in the milk, lemon zest and blueberries. Spread the batter in a greased 20x20 cm tin, and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Once it's done, poke holes in the top with a fork and drizzle the syrup over. Let it soak in and cool completely. Cut into squares, and serve with extra blueberries and a dusting of powdered sugar or some whipped cream if you have it.