Preserve fresh Edible Flowers in Sugar
Though most people think of flowers as ornaments for the home or garden, many of them are in fact edible. Lavender buds can be pressed into cookies, the essence of roses is used to make Turkish Delight, and Nasturtiums brighten up a summer salad with their peppery orange blossoms. Primroses are another great edible flower. You can use them fresh but to preserve them for longer, you can crystallize primroses in sugar.
Primrose flowers are Edible
Primroses are one of the most common and beautiful spring flowers and they also happen to fall into the edible category. Though personally I don’t think they taste like much on their own, when coated with sugar they transform into a beautifully sweet and natural decoration that can be used on desserts and cakes.
Primroses come in a range of Colours
Primroses are low-growing plants with rough, tongue-like leaves. The colour of the flowers may vary but they’ll likely be a creamy yellow with a darker yellow centre if you find them growing wild in the countryside. You may well have them growing in your garden as well and in that case they can be pink, purple, white, or a range of other colours. All colours of primrose are edible.
How to Crystallise Flowers
4. Once hardened, use the flowers to decorate cakes, cupcakes, and desserts. You can also crystalise Primroses well in advance since they can last for up to a year if stored in a dark, dry place. These flowers are also so pretty that they’re perfect for decorating a spring cake or even being packaged up in tissue paper and given to a friend as a gift.
If you’ve used light coloured icing, like I have on my cake, edible leaves, such as Peppermint, create a nice backdrop for the flowers. You could even use them to recreate a rosette of Primroses like you’d find growing outside in the spring sunshine.
How wonderful. Thank you. I’ve just bought lots of primroses for my English cottage garden and will now be combining my love of gardening with cooking. How inspiring. Having just enjoyed your video as a bedtime treat I’ll now be falling to sleep happily relaxed thinking of your beautiful ideas and cakes….
Sweet pea flowers are also edible and taste great in green salads 🙂
Sweet pea flowers, Lathyrus odoratus, are poisonous. Do not eat!
Honeysuckle, elder (floral and sweet), and tiger lily (faint onion flavor) are a few. *Asiatic day flower (small intensely blue, considered a pest weed) is pretty in salad and can be used to make dye.
It is surprising to know that primrose flowers are edible. Thank you for providing this useful information to me and everyone.
Thanks for the information. I am definitely going to try this. Also adding a few of the flowers to my garden.
Hi Tanya
Are the flowers just left on the shelf to dry or in the fridge?
Hi Rael — you dry them at room temperature.
These are so pretty! Now I want to bake something just so I can add these pretty, edible flowers to it! 🙂
So pretty! Sadly, my cakes don't always turn out so well. But if I added these, they'd at least make a good impression sitting on the counter!
What an elegant touch! Thank you for the tutorial and for sharing at the Clever Chicks Blog Hop!
Kathy Shea Mormino
The Chicken Chick
Thanks for sharing! A great lesson!
You're very welcome Endah 🙂
Hi Tanya,
Thank you for the tutorial. I am growing many of the flowers on your list this year, as well as violas which will be perfect for crystallizing.
Violas and Pansies are beautiful little flowers that would be perfect for crystallizing. They'd look lovely arranged on a cake with a few of the other edible flower types don't you think? 🙂