Edible flowers

You may by now know that I am ever so slightly obsessed with edible flowers at the moment. I literally can’t resist buying them everytime I see them and in addition I am growing lots of different types as well. They just make everything look nicer and add really interesting tastes as well that you can’t seem to find from other foods. 

On that note then I thought I’d share a few of the ways that I’ve been using them recently.

1. In salads

I have already shared my Samphire and rocket salad garnished with edible flowers which you can see here. I have also used them to garnish lots of other salads as you can see here. They add so much colour and lots of different tastes.

2.     In ice cubes. 

This is an especially good use when the flowers are coming to the end of their life and are starting to wilt slightly as putting them into the water makes them spread out and come to life a bit (or at least look as though they’ve come to life).to do this is very simple, as just fill an ice cube tray and put a flower into each section. It is better to use distilled and boiled water (that has cooled slightly) as this will ensure that your ice cubes are nice and clear and not cloudy. 

3.     In drinks. 

Some flowers with stronger flavours add a lovely unique taste to drinks and cocktails. For example lavender. You can either make a syrup from the flower by crushing the flowers and then steeping them in a sugar syrup, or just steeping the crushed flower into an alcohol like vodka or gin.

4.     To garnish cocktails. 

Adding an edible flower, or a couple of flowers, to the top of your cocktail looks lovely and will really finish it off.

5.     To decorate desserts/cakes etc.

Adding some edible flowers to the top of your desserts or cakes and them sprinkling with some icing sugar looks so lovely and is such a quick way to decorate that literally takes no effort.

I’m sure there are lots of other ways to use them but these are the main ones that I’ve been doing recently. Enjoy!