32.Edible Flowers - sweet
There are a number of flowers that are edible. Different cultures use flowers in different ways, and for sweet things the scent is as important a component as the taste.
Many upmarket chocolate brands have floral-based flavours: Violet Creams by Charbonnel and Walker, Rose and Black Pepper by Coco and Lavender chocolate by Coco. The chocolatiers create those flavours using floral essential oils. These are extracted from the petals of flowers using steam distillation: first heating the petals and water in large stills to vaporise the oil, then re-distilling the remaining water again to extract the water-soluble part of the oil which is important for the scent. The vapour and the second extraction are then re-combined to create the high quality essential oil that is used for chocolate. It maintains its taste and its scent. Interestingly, the surplus water remaining after that second distillation becomes the rose water we use for cooking.
In the Middle East there is a long tradition of using rose water, syrups and jams in their cuisine. The Ottomans were using rose flavourings in Turkish delight (Lokum) in the eighteenth century. Rose petal jam is a Lebanese speciality, eaten with ice cream and scones. This is made in a similar way to traditional jam, but with reduced temperatures and cooking times, just enough to thicken the mix. Rose syrup is a popular ingredient in cocktails.
You need to choose the highly scented rose varieties for this. Traditional choices are Damask Roses (Rosa Damascena) and Centifolia Roses. James Wong recommends some of the newer David Austin English rose varieties: Harlow Carr (Aushouse) gives a traditional rose scent, Lady Emma Hamilton (Ausbrother) has a more tropical fruity scent, Sharifa Asma (Ausreef) has a strong berry scent.
Flower scented sugars are another way to extract taste and flavour from flower petals. Mix the petals with sugar in a mixing bowl (1:10 ratio), and store it in a sealed jar for a month before sieving the sugar to remove the petals. By then the flower oils will have been absorbed by the sugar, and it can be kept in an airtight container until needed. Popular flowers to try this with are sweet violets, honeysuckle, jasmine, lavender, elderflower and of course roses.
Decorative crystallised flowers are made by coating the (whole flower) petals in egg white and sprinkling the sugar onto them before drying and storing. Sweet violets (Violeta odorata) make lovely sugar flowers.
On a last, less sweet note, flowers are widely used in tea: jasmine, camomile and bergamot (used in Earl Grey) are the most well-known ones. My favourite is Rose Pouchong: a delicately scented blend of dried rose petals and oil blended with a China tea. It is delicious.
