Flower Power
Petals You Can Eat
Incredible Edibles! Add a splash of colour and interest to your garden party foods with these great edible flowers.
Edible flowers are making the news! Blue, purple, pink, red and orange. Certain flowers add colour and taste to your summer cooking. Here are our top flowers to eat this summer.
Nasturtium
They look great tumbling from a window box or filling a corner in the garden with their flame red, orange and gold colours. Throw them into a salad to bring vibrancy and peppery flavour to the mix.
Pot Marigold
(Calendula officinalis) Bright orange/gold petals can be used to decorate summer desserts or in a baby leaf salad.
Daisies
Who hasn’t got these on the lawn? Don’t waste them. Lawn daisies are edible provided they haven’t had any chemicals or sprayed on them. They look great on cakes or on salads.
Lavender Flowers
Can be used fresh or dried. Use sprigs to infuse sugar for baking, decorate fairy cakes, to give scent and delicate taste to custard.
Rose Petals
Easy to crystallise by painting lightly with egg white and dusting with sugar. Use to decorate a tea time cake or dessert for a touch of elegance.
Rosemary Flowers
Add beautiful fragrance and bluey purple colours to savoury dishes like a smooth chicken liver pate or soft goats cheese salad. Also, sprinkle over an oven-baked Cooleeney Camembert just before serving with lots of sourdoughs to dunk in!
Chive flowers
These little purple puffball blossoms are a ‘must have’ in a hipster salad! Great with fish dishes too.
Wild garlic flowers
Pretty white blossoms suit any savoury dishes where wild garlic is involved. Sprinkle with chopped wild garlic leaves over slow-cooked belly pork or gorgeous roast chicken for a summer presentation!
Gorse blossom
You can still grab yourself a clutch of bright yellow wild gorse flowers to make gorse tea as recommended by Sharon Green of Wild Irish Foragers and Preservers. Follow her instructions from our blog on the subject here.
Borage Blossoms
Beautiful blue flowers grow wild or can be cultivated in the garden. Use them for decorating cupcakes and delicate puddings. They also crystallise well and add a touch of class to a glass of gin with a slice of orange!
A final word of advice
As with all plants you’re going to eat, make sure your edible flowers have been grown without chemicals and never pick anything you are unsure about. The best way to do this is to grow them yourself using organic plants and organic compost!
Happy edible gardening!
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