Crystallized roses

Welcome to my first cookery and floral post.  I have been excited about this all week since the concept of this blog began.  I have some exciting things to share with you next week, and am in the process of just dotting the i's and crossing the t's to gain permissions to share some very famous recipes in full with you so that I can show you how to complement the food you cook with some wonderful flowers and you will be able to have a go from scratch too.  I will have a recipe and a floral design recipe on each post along with a photograph of the dish I have cooked and the floral design I have created....and of course for the recipe there will be credit where credit is due.

Until then this weekend I am cooking some recipes from the books of the famous cooks that grace our tv screens and bookshelves.  To help you I will put the name of the recipe and the reference from the book it comes from and you can dust it off your bookshelf or perhaps you might feel so inclined to buy the book and have a go yourself.

But first crystallized roses.  Tomorrow I am making a cake which will use these but I have to make them today as they ideally need to be left overnight to dryout.

For the cake you will need 3 roseheads and the petals from a rosehead.  You will need one egg white, a pastry brush or a fine artist brush (an unused one) and some caster sugar.  Paint the outside of the rose and get the brush into the inside petals of the rose and the top and then sprinkle with caster sugar.  For the petals paint each side and cover in caster sugar.  Lay on some baking parchment to dryout for around 24 hours.  Don't drench the rose or petals with the egg white. 

These flowers will last after the drying out period for approx 2-3 days.

I am using pink roses this weekend with a few dendrobium orchids for the Sunday posts, just for very simple adornments, next weekend we will do something a bit more interesting.