Dandelion Cordial

Apart from rhubarb there isn't much ready to eat in my allotment at the moment. One thing that is growing quite nicely though is dandelions. Now, much as they are very pretty, I don't really want an allotment full of dandelions. It does seem a shame just to pull them up and chuck them in a heap though. For Christmas I was given Alys Fowlers 'The Thrify Forager' and she does say that you can eat dandelion leaves, I haven't tried one yet, in fact she said you could pretty much eat all of a dandelion. I'd seen a lot online about people making dandelion cordial and I thought I'd do that. I didn't anticipate it being quite so labour intensive.

I got Kit to help me pick 100+ dandelion flowerheads at the allotment, which was fun to begin with.
I spent 45 mins de-petalling the dandelion flowerheads. Then boiled them up in a litre of water and left to stew overnight. The following day I melted in sugar, nearly equal in quantity to the liquid and squeezed in some lemon juice. I simmered off a bit of the liquid to make it thicker. Then left it to cool.

It tastes ok, but nowhere near as special as I want it to considering the effort involved in de-petalling!
(It might be because I left it too late to pick my dandelions - I bet I'll end up trying again next year - I make Sloe Gin every year and never drink it!)