A few years back, I was a member of a CSA share that regularly included edible flowers in with the lettuces, tomatoes, and zucchini. While I was charmed by the presence of these flowers, I was always flummoxed when it came to actually using them. If only Miche Bacher’s new book, Cooking with Flowers had been around then. I would have done so much more with those tasty blooms.
Organized by variety of flower, each section begins with details about the particular blossom being featured. Then come the recipes, which manage to straddle the line between being appealing new and still familiar enough to get the old salivary glands working (for instances, how about a scoop of Lilac Sorbet).
As a preserver, I’m particularly interested in the ways that flowers can enhance my preserves. I often used dried lavender buds in jams and jellies to add a floral note, but now I’m contemplating the ways that lilac, nasturtium, and rose petals could improve or add interest to my basic sweet spreads. Makes the mind boggle a little, doesn’t it?
This recipe for Dandelion Jam was originally intended to go in the book, but because of space constraints, was cut from the volume. Eric from Quirk knows I happen to have a thing for jams and so asked if I’d like to feature the recipe here. I said yes and here we are.
I’ve not made this jam, but having read the recipe, I do believe it should work. For a preserve like this one, cooking it up to 220 degrees F will improve your chances of getting a good set from it. Also, do note that while it instructs you to put the finished jam in sterilized jars and seal them, it also requires that you store them in the fridge. This is because the jam doesn’t have the proper acidity for boiling water bath canning.
Dandelion Jam
Ingredients
- 8 cups water
- 4 cups dandelion blossoms
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 1 3/4-ounce package powdered fruit pectin
- 5 1/2 cups sugar
Instructions
- Pour the water into a large saucepan and add dandelion blossoms. Bring mixture to a boil and continue boiling for about 5 minutes, or until water turns yellow.
- Pour the resulting tea through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl, pressing the flowers to get as much of the color and flavor through the strainer as you can. Discard blossoms.
- Place 3 cups of the tea in a medium saucepan and add lemon juice and pectin. Bring to a boil. Stir in the sugar and boil for 10 minutes, or until sugar dissolves.
- Pour mixture into sterilized half-pint jars and seal. Store refrigerated for up to 2 months.
We used to eat honeysuckle flowers as a kid. We would suck the honey part out of the back and then chomp down. Isn’t that what every Summer is made of? 🙂
I remember years ago when I was working at the Fort Magruder, when Mrs. White own it. I was working in the kitchen, and on the hot line the chefs were using edible flowers. I was order by the chef to taste the editable flower! That was the start for me.
I sprinkle pansy flowers on salads for a burst of color.
Zucchini flowers. But the book sounds interesting and would make me want to try more.
Besides raiding the honeysuckle as a kid, I have eaten Borage blossoms, made Chive Blossom vinegar and thrown Nasturiums in salads. The book looks wonderful!
The first time I “really” ate/cooked with flowers was last year when I made honeysuckle jelly. It was delicious and I’d love to find ways to incorporate more flowers into our diet.
this spring, i’ve made 18 half pints of violet jam, and 4 pints of violet syrup! my 4 year old has to taste violets wherever he goes. 🙂
Never ate any flowers until last summer – kept hearing that dandelion blooms were edible, so picked one out of my front yard and tried it (the only thing I do to my yard is mow, so no fear of pesticide/herbicide here). My girlfriend looked at me like I was crazy, though.
I tried my first flower at a wedding reception. thanks!
You know what’s crazy? I’ve only ever eaten lavender. In ice cream. (typical haha) This book looks gorgeous – – thank you for the giveaway!
I’ve found a lot of new things for flowers this and last year. I started last year making a chive blossom vinegar that was both beautiful in color and had an awesome flavor. This year I’m hoping to add nasturtium vinegar as well. Then there are the buds – pickled nasturtium and dandelion buds are on my list. I made an awesome dandelion apple jelly last week, and found a recipe for marigold rosemary jelly that I am waiting to try once I get some marigolds going this year. So little time and so many new things to try!
Oh what a fun cookbook to browse thru! I have lots of flowers so that would be a good edition to my cookbook shelf!
When I was a kid, my dad pointed out all the edible flowers in his extensive flower beds. My favorite was picking columbine flowers and sucking the nectar from them!
Love lavender ice cream but violets in a salad was my first. Then I found out that salads are much more interesting when you use what’s in season and what’s local!
We love flowers in jellies and salads. It’s a fun way to eat your ‘greens’.
Dandelions, violets, nasturtiums, and lavender are regulars around here. And we cook with rose and orange blossom water.
I have never eaten a flower but have been researching edible flowers and want to start. Thanks for the chance to win.
Nasturtiums are a salad favorite and I remember a neighbor of mine making dandelion wine (of which I never got to taste). I am more familiar with non-flowering wild edibles, but would love to learn more about edible flowers. Thank you for the recipe.
I use dried lavender in cookies, but we have wild pansies popping up all over our yard this year so my 8 year old and I have been candying them. She thinks this is the coolest thing ever. If they weren’t so expensive, I’d order often to dress up our salads and desserts. My 3 kids and I picked dandelions last week and they are now in the freezer waiting to be turned into a recipe just like this. Thanks for sharing!!
I love love love LOVE rose ice cream!
I love using floral flavor in my jams… Candied violets are amazing too! I actually buy a tea that contains them & pick them out. I also love tea containing rose petals. Hmmm, I think I need to take some to work today (so relaxing!).
When I was a child, we lived next door to an older retired couple. At the time, I thought old Mr. Les had to have been 100 years old. During the summer, I used to watch him in his backyard picking dandelions. Finally, I mustered up the courage to ask him what he was doing. He told me he was picking those bright yellow flowers to make wine. I asked him if I could help him pick the flowers. He was very kind to let me finish picking them all myself. lol I had forgotten all about those dandelions until one day he met me at the fence with a glass of “wine.” I remember it was a hot, humid day in Baltimore and that “wine” tasted so delicious. It wasn’t until years and years later that I found out it wasn’t wine at all, but lemonade. It still tasted great!
I once had fried squash blossoms….delicious.
What a beautiful cookbook! I would love to try some flowers! 🙂
Oh wow thanks for the review on this book, and I would really love to win this. I have been looking more and more into edible flowers. Last night I picked wild violets here in my ozarks woods of Missouri and added them to my fresh picked salad. thanks for the chance. Kathy
Used to be a pizza place called Flatbreads near Ben & Jerry’s that used flower petals on their pizzas, I’ll have to check and see how many of my wildflowers are edible, that will shock the kids to see them on a salad or homemade pizza.
If this counts, around 4 sucking the juice from honeysuckle vine flowers. If eating a whole flower is what you want probably 30 years old and eating nasturtiums in a salad.
I asked my future father-in-law to make my wedding cake from a Silver Palate recipe (anyone remember that book?). He decorated it with beautiful and tasty flowers. I can still picture it.
May I enter if I haven’t eaten a flower that I know of? I am certainly intrigued by the dandelion recipe though as our ‘back forty’ is covered with the accursed things. Maybe I will just have to change my mind about them!
The first flower I ate was a zucchini flower stuffed with cheese and lightly fried. OMG, it was heaven. Every year I try to grow zucchini just for the flower and the deer get to it first. Now we get loads of flowers thru the CSA. My favorite are the nasturtiums mixed in the salads. Even the kids love them.
Thank for the recipe and the awesome giveaway.
Wild violets are my current flower project (though when I get sunflowers in the CSA farm share I’m interested to read this book and see what I can do with them besides enjoy their beauty).
Last year my daughter and I made wild violet jelly. This year it’s wild violet syrup and wild violet sugar, both of which I used for a really tasty muffin a couple of days ago. I’ve got a bit left for waffles, I think, or maybe pancakes.
I think the jar on the right in the photo is wild violet jelly–that purple is such a unique color.
I’m interested in trying dandelion jelly–but I don’t think the composting guinea pigs would like to share their spring delicacies!
I remember a taste of my father’s dandelion wine years and years ago. Until then I didn’t now you *could* eat flowers! I’ve heard of dandelion greens in salad, since then, and that zucchini blossoms are edible (but I don’t know how and always worry it’ll damage the zucchini – which is more important to me). I’m excited at the prospect of cooking more with flowers!
Love nasturtiums in salads, terrific!
I tried squash blossoms for the first time last year. I’d seen them at the market for a couple years and was very skeptical. Turns out they are a delicious treat.
We love the pickled nasturtium buds ~ California capers!
I’ve made lavender ice cream that was wonderful. I also get nasturtium flowers through my CSA, and have been planting up a space in my yard with edible herbs/flowers…this book would give me tons of ideas!
Zucchini blossoms! Both fresh from the garden & fried! 🙂
I made rose petal sorbet in combination with spicy granola for my friend’s annual Academy Awards party to represent grace and nature (the themes from the film Tree of Life). My dish was the party’s favorite! I love cooking with flowers.
delicious nasturtiums stuffed with creamy vermont chevre!
My mom would always buy violet pastilles in a pretty little tin. She kept them in the glove compartment of the car, and I would love getting a couple of them on long car rides.
We eat dandelion greens all the time and I have been known to nibble violets from our lawn.
Nasturiums on salad
Honeysuckle…that was my first flower sample and almost addictive as a kid…then violets, just plain, not candied. Then as an adult I went to the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia and had the most wonderful strawberry rhubarb pie ala mode with lavender ice cream that wasn’t soapy or perfume-like, but a truly memorable scoop with the essence of the buds.
I have taught my kids a few plants they can eat from our yard (dandelions, onion grass, wild strawberries) and it never ceases to freak people out when they see my kids pick something from the grass and eat it.
I make a version of challah that has lavender in it, smells and tastes heavenly! : )
My Mom would make us fried tiger lily blossoms when we were kids.
Does lavender ice cream count? (if not, the only flowers I’ve eaten were made of frosting… excited to try some and this book looks beautiful!)
Oooh…I’d love to add this book to my preserving library!
Good story – I made violet jam following Euell Gibbon’s recipe once. It was delicious and elegant.
Bad story – After once having yummy sauteed daylily buds prepared by my brother, I decided to make them for my mom and sister. I don’t know what went wrong, but all three of has had a mercifully short period of extreme GI distress!
I remember eating the center out of a honeysuckle when I was at a friend’s house in elementary school.