Welcome to my garden

Firstly, I apologise for not blogging for a while.  I've had a maths exam this week, and as usual I was 'cramming' at the last minute.  All done now, and it seemed to go OK.  So, back to baking.  Hurrah!

One of the challenges I've been particularly looking forward to, is making crystallised flowers.  But where to get them?  As Rachel says, you can't use flowers that have been sprayed with chemicals - which probably cuts out most of the ones you'd get in garden centres or florists.  So I thought I'd turn to my own garden.  I really love my outdoor space, and feel lucky to have a good sized garden such as we'd never get with a new build.  Megan is particularly enjoying it at the moment - discovering the joy of being able to toddle around and explore.  On a nice day, she has no need for toys and would happily potter all day.

We don't have many flowers in the  garden, mainly due to a pair of roaming pet rabbits, who eat everything they can.  A couple of years ago, I decided the garden needed brightening up.  So I googled 'plants rabbits hate' and sent Nigel off to Wilko with a shopping list.  He came back with said plants, and we spent a busy afternoon planting pots.  Woke up the next morning, and there was one of the rabbits cheekily sitting on a pot, munching away.  He clearly hadn't read the web page that I did!  So, for the time being the garden will have to stay as it is.  Not that I have much time for gardening anyway!

We are lucky to have 2 apple trees, and I love to see the spring blossom.  It always seems a shame that it's gone so quickly.  So, it seemed a good idea to use it for this challenge.  A way of keeping the spring for a bit longer!  Crystallised flowers are really easy to do.  You just need to paint them with egg white, then sprinkle with caster sugar, and leave to dry overnight.  I made the mistake of painting just the tops!  Checked them in the morning and wondered why they were still soft.  Then I realised, and had to get my egg whites and sugar out again.  The flowers went brown after a few days, and I think maybe that's why - the underside was left open to the air for too long.  They looked gorgeous when they were fresh though - I used them to decorate Rachel's lemon cupcakes...

There are all sorts of edible flowers.  I really like this website, which also gives you some recipes, such as citrus blossom salad and rose petal sorbet.  http://www.thompson-morgan.com/edible-flowers.  It tells you which flowers are edible, and which ones definitely aren't http://www.thompson-morgan.com/poisonous-flower-varieties



If you'd rather not eat raw egg white, I found this link which gives you another method of making the flowers... http://premeditatedleftovers.com/recipes-cooking-tips/how-to-make-candied-flowers/

I'll definitely have a go at crystallised flowers again, but while we've still got the rabbits, I might have to borrow from someone else's garden!  



In other baking adventures, this week I've made Rachel's 'poppy seed cake with vanilla buttercream icing'.  The icing is amazing, and completely unlike any I've made before.  You make a custard with egg yolks; milk and sugar, and then whip it up with softened butter.  Really rich and delicious!  The cake has gone to a friend who's having guests to stay for a family funeral.  I await feedback! 

I've also tried my hand at English muffins.  To form these, you roll the bread dough into a sausage shape and slice 2cm pieces... a bit like making biscuits.  And like my biscuit making attempts, I am hopeless at getting a nice round sausage!  So my muffins were a little misshapen, but tasted good.  I just call them quirky!  I think next time, I'll roll balls of dough and flatten them out.



 

Gorgeous warm with melting butter, or toasted with cheese under the grill.