Crystallized Flowers?

Here is one project that you can do on any rainy day: edible sugar crystallized flowers. Before you decide to invest your time and energy on the making of these dainty delights, check with your doctor, or your mom, that the ingestion of flowers will not cause you any harm. And if you are not allergic to flowers, do not try to eat them all in one sitting. It is typical for one to encounter adverse reactions after the ingestion of edible flowers. A few heart palpitations after a few bites of this stuff is common. I would suggest that you never eat the bulbs, or the leaves, for that matter, and they are quite bitter. Now that we have got the precautions taken care of, here comes the answer as to where you may purchase these edible flowers. I had bought mine from my grocery store's organic produce section. I would also like to note that you should only purchase organic. Never get anything from a florist because they are loaded with too many pesticides (and they are probably not choice for this recipe anyway).

Here is what you need:

Edible Flowers
Fine Sugar
Powdered Egg Whites
Clean Paint Brush
Wax Paper
Ice
Bowl
Tweezers
Table Napkins
A Capacious, Flat Work Surface
Patience
Refinement

So you got your equipment! Now you're ready to proceed.

First, remove the large petals from the bulbs, and as for the smaller ones, leave them be. Fill your bowl with cool water and dunk all flowers in. Let stand for 10 minutes as the dirt falls to the bottom of the bowl. Make sure you slosh them in with a clean hand to get them moving around a bit. Just don't overdo it as these flowers are quite fragile.

The next thing is you'll need to dump out the old water, and then dunk in some ice. Pour in some cool water. The cold ice water will perk up the petals, revive their color, and refresh them.
Now they're ready to dry. Carefully remove the flowers from the bowl, transfer them onto paper towels, sort them in a single layer, and let dry.

Note: do not let the petals dry overnight or they will shrivel up.


Once dry, you're now ready to paint them with the powdered egg white mixture. Mix a round teaspoon of egg white mixture and a 1/2 cup of water into a bowl and whisk. The mixture should be smooth and free of clumps. Get out two wide rimmed shallow plates and line each with wax paper. Plate one will be the station where you paint your petals. Plate two will be the station where you set your painted and sugar dusted petals.

Using the tweezers, hold the petal in place as you paint each side with the egg white mixture. Immediately dunk it in the suger, carefully, and line it on plate two. Form the petal into the desired shape, and let dry. Repeat all the above steps until you're done.

Now, you're probably wondering what happened to the purple, yellow, and blue petals. Well, look below and you'll see that they have shriveled up (I was tired and it was 3 am). I tried them in my omelet but then I came down with heart palpitations so I threw all my project away. Even the crystallized ones that I worked so hard on :(



Well, at least I got some nice photos out of this project.

 For more ideas about how to incorporate edible flowers into your recipes, check out Edible Flowers: From garden to kitchen: growing flowers you can eat, with a directory of 40 edible varieties and 25 recipes, with 350 glorious colour photographs. and Melissa's Assorted Edible Flowers (50).