Candied flowers

[mostlylana]

Thanks so much for your advice dystopiandreamgirl! VERY helpful!

Yes, I did more reading last night and it seems that the whole trick to these is getting the egg white on thin enough. I was soooo hoping to just dunk the flower in the egg white and sugar coat. Oh well...

I love your idea to use on airbrush HQAntithesis. Clever. I'm going to try a spray bottle today to see if that's at all helpful.

Here's a great read about SweetFields. They seem to have mastered the dunk and sugar coat... and they use wire racks... Hmmmmmmmm...........

http://www.sweetfields.com/images/california%20country.pdf

[andiesenji]

I read through the entire entry on Sweetfields and note that they are using Gum Arabic.

I have about 1/8 pound in my art studio and just ordered another pound (for watercolor paintings). It might be something to try if you want to avoid egg whites.

It can be diluted just enough to make a substantial glue or to the point where it is barely viscous and can be sprayed. It is extremely stable.

I've used it in other food preps (candies) but never for crystalized flowers.

You would probably have to experiment a bit to get the correct consistency but the resulting liquid would probably be easier to handle and as it remains a bit flexible, the petals should be less likely to shatter if mishandled.

Edited July 3, 2009 by andiesenji (log)

[MaggieL]

What a timely thread! I recently discovered the joys of candying flowers, and have been looking for places to gush about the experience. I strongly encourage everyone to try it at least once--it's a crafting project that combines the rush of foraging for wild edibles with the joy of making something beautiful. And so easy! (if a wee bit time consuming).

I read the instructions from a few sites (here, here, and here) and then improvised by combining advice from the different authors.

I had hoped to purchase flowers from a flower shop, but couldn't find one that carried pesticide-free flowers. I ended up foraging for violets and lilacs in wild places instead, which turned out to be far more fun. I rinsed the flowers by floating them in still water, and then laid them to dry for a few hours on some paper towels.

I found pasteurized egg whites in a small carton at my grocery store (Naturegg--Simply Egg Whites), and diluted some of these with a spoonful or two of water. I whisked this mixture together gently, until I had a bit of loose foam on the surface. The foam dissipated as I worked on the flowers, and so every once in a while, I'd gently whisk the whites again.

I used a small paint brush to apply the egg white mixture. Over time, I discovered that I could do several flowers at a time: I brushed egg whites onto the top side of the flower, and then gently rested the flowers (coated side down) on some waxed paper. Once I had several flowers lined up like this, I brushed the undersides of their petals with the egg whites. This double-brushing seemed to help me keep the delicate petals of the violets separate from one another. I sprinkled the undersides with superfine sugar (using my fingers), and then flipped them over to sprinkle them

on their tops as well.

Following advice from somewhere on the internet, I dried the flowers on a wire rack, covered in waxed paper, covered in a layer of superfine sugar (the poster had suggested that the sugar-layer would support the heavy petals, and help the flowers dry in a nice shape). Next time, I think that I will forgo the layer of sugar--it just seemed to stick to the flowers, and made them heavier and taste too sugary.

I candied about 40-60 flowers, and the whole process (minus the initial rinsing/drying of the flowers) took me about 1-2 hours. I found it peaceful and meditative.

I liked the look of the lilac flowers a lot, but preferred the taste of the violets (much more subtle).

Some pictures from my food-crafting adventure:

This is a picture of the flowers, after they'd dried for 48 hours.

This is a close-up of the flowers on a cupcake. The large flower with the green centre is a violet, and the top two on the right are lilac blossoms.

More flowers on cupcakes.

And again, more flowers on cupcakes. I like this last photo because I think it nicely captures the full effect--the way the bit of colour in the flowers added so much elegance to the cupcakes*.

[The cupcakes, in case you are interested, are from the recipe featured in this blog post, but filled with the mango curd from Smitten Kitchen. They were amazing, albeit somewhat rich.]

[mostlylana]

Boy, you guys have posted some beautiful results! The lilac petals are gorgeous but I can't imagine the time involved! Well I played with crystallizing the other day... my conclusion: I'd rather buy from Sweetfields!

It is a tedious venture. It took me hours and hours. I'm such a researcher, my fear is that I'm going to do all kinds of experiments on crystallizing flowers until I learn how SweetFields does 1200 in 1 hour! I'll have to reign in that obsessive part of myself!

I didn't like using the paintbrush. I used a spray bottle that has a very fine mist. I was working outside so no problem to get the spray everwhere. The pansies took a long time as you need to get the spray and sugar coating inbetween each petal. For the smaller ones, I just sprayed front and back and didn't bother going inbetween. It worked! I also started out placing them on parchment layered with sugar. I found they got too many sugar clumps that way. I preferred putting them down on plain parchment and then moving them when they got slightly hardened. If you do that they won't glue to the spot where they were placed.

It was getting late when I started the rose petals and mint leaves so I decided to do it the easy way. I laid them both out on parchment covered half sheets. I sprayed the whole lot right on the sheet and then sprinkled with sugar. (I liked using a small sieve for the sugar). I then placed parchment over the petals/leaves and put another half sheet over them (as in stacking so the bottom of the half sheet was putting pressure on the petals/leaves. I then flipped the sheets over - removed the first sheet and parchment which exposed the other side of the petal/leaves for spraying and sugaring. I loved that! It took minutes! The rose petals worked well but I was running out of meringue spray when I did the leaves so I had a few brown spots on those.

What I don't care for in the homemade version is the amount of sugar that coats the flowers. The SweetFields process - as they say in the article - melts together to form a coating. There are no sugar crystals, just a shimmery sparkle.

Don't - try - to - figure - it - out - Lana - just buy them!

Here are some photos of my results: