Edible flowers of Spring
I’m not sure what it is that draws me to edible flowers. I suppose I love flowers so much that bringing them into the kitchen was inevitable! As I nibble my way through all the edible flowers in the garden, I find that some are very definitely worth eating and others really don’t add much to the sum of human happiness.
Luckily a lot of spring flowers are a great addition to the kitchen, for their looks and many cases for their flavour. There are all sorts of ways to use edible flowers and in the coming weeks I’ll give you a round-up of how we use them, but with delicate spring blooms you can get started by just bunging them on the plate as a garnish. There is nothing simpler. They can be placed around a starter, laid out on a cake just before it’s served or sprinkled on top of a risotto or a salad, or anything you like. This is particularly useful with flowers that have a good savoury flavour, like those of bolting mustard plants or the mild, garlicky flowers of various wild garlics (see below).
Most of these are very common and easy to find, and are probably growing in your garden already, so I hope once you finish reading you will head out to the garden, gather a few, and be eating a beautiful spring supper tonight. None of these will last long out of water so pick them just before you use them or else keep them on their stems in a jug of water, ideally in the fridge until you need them.
Finally, I should add the obligatory note that you really shouldn’t eat anything unless you’re sure what it is. If in doubt leave it out. This list is of the flowers I have in the garden at the moment, but there are plenty of others in bloom elsewhere. I find this list on Thompson and Morgan to be very thorough as a resource for inspiration. I would add that my general rule is to find advice that you can eat a flower in at least three places online before you dive in. The internet is a wide and wild place and you never know what some nutters might write… A quick search online should yield results for even the rarest of edible options, so if you’re keen to diverge from this list and try other blooms, make sure a few people have tried them out and lived to tell the tale. Also, make sure you know your flowers are clean. If they’re in your garden and you’re generally organic and haven’t used pesticides or weed killers then you can nibble them as you pick them. If you’re gathering from elsewhere or the flowers are already on a plant you’ve just bought, give them a quick wash to be safe.
Tulips
I’m starting with these because they’re the most surprising flower on the list and because, as I write, your tulips are probably at their peak, so there isn’t much time left to use them. The first time I ate a tulip petal I held it, trembling, to my lips and took the smallest nibble I could manage. It just felt all wrong. But to my amazement they actually tasted lovely. The petals are quite thick and crisp and have a flavour half way between lemon and lettuce. They’re extremely handy as serving cups for savoury or sweet food (they’re great holding ice cream for example). A revelation and well worth trying. Either snap the petals off or, if you are stuffing the flowers whole, make sure you remove the central reproductive parts and all of the stem. These parts aren’t toxic per se, but aren’t great for the digestion. But don’t be put off! The petals are wonderful!
Primroses
Primroses are a classic edible flower and were traditionally used to decorate Simnel cakes, a fruit and marzipan cake eaten around Easter. Easter may be passed, but primroses will be good to eat for a while yet. They have a gentle, slightly lemony flavour and although they’re quite a big flower they’re nice and crisp on the tongue and not too papery. As with all flowers, they are lovely just used as a garnish, but the traditional way to use them is to crystallise them. Paint the front and back with whisked egg white with a teaspoon of water added, and then sprinkle sugar over both sides before laying them on baking parchment to dry. They can be stored this way for months and are great for decorating cakes and deserts.
Don’t feel limited to the traditional yellow primrose (Primula veris), all primroses are edible. Cowslips work just as well although I would slip them out of their calyx which is more pronounced. Most excitingly, all cultivars are edible no matter how jazzy they may look, so bedding primulas are a great addition to the dinner table. This opens up a world of brightly coloured blooms from pinks to red and even deep blue. I love primula ‘Zebra Blue’ which adds a bit of shock factor for dinner guests to boot.
Violas
Another classic for crystallising are violets, which I remember seeing in little bags at great expense in a very smart chocolate shop in Venice. Small, wild violets are quite hard to crystallise as their flowers have a lovely 3 dimensional quality that is lost and works against you in the sugaring process, so I would use wild violets as they are. Hybrid violas and pansies have much flatter flowers which makes them a real gift for sugaring and for decorating food in general. I much prefer small viola types which I use to top tulip pots over winter. The larger pansies are still edible but one thing I’ve learnt is that most edible flowers are best enjoyed in small bites. Chewing on a whole pansy stops being pleasurable and becomes thought provoking. Instead I would pull off the petals and scatter them on food and salads, or else use them in recipes like floral pasta (recipe to follow shortly!).
Alkanet
Alkanet is the most annoying weed I’ve had to battle with in this garden. 5 years I’m finally on top of it, but it has deep roots, the tips of which will regrow if they snap off when you dig them out. Its big, hairy leaves are ugly, but it has wonderful deep blue flowers, much like a forget-me-not. They’re a bit of a fiddle to remove from the plant: I gently pinch behind the petals to lift them free of the calyx. Once you have them they are brilliant to use in all sorts of ways. They crystallise better than forget-me-nots because they’re bigger, and they keep their deep blue as they dry. They’re also great in ice cubes for drinks in the summer.
Forget-me-nots
These are in the same family as alkanet, and as borage which I will include in a later list of edible flowers in summer. Their exquisite range of pinks and blues are set off by a bright yellow centre. On the downside, you face the same issue as that with alkanet in terms of pulling the petals free without damaging them. I often just use a full spray as a decoration, but the stems aren’t great to eat so I do this with the assumption that they’ll be left at the side of the plate. Once you liberate the petals they are a wonderful, delicate garnish or can be popped on the top of a cake or into ice cubes.
Honesty
I have loved honesty since I was a little girl for its flowers and fat ‘money purse’ pods, but I was surprised to discover recently that it’s edible. The leaves and pods actually have quite a strong mustard flavour, but the flowers are mild and very beautiful. You have to be quite careful not to crush the papery petals but they look lovely.
Wild garlics
Traditionally people seek out wild garlic (Allium ursinum) for its leaves, but its flowers are delicious too. This year I’ve been tackling the less well known three cornered leek, Allium triquetrum which is invasive and tough to eliminate and has unfortunately and mysteriously popped up all over the garden. It has very different leaves to the broad flat leaves of wild garlic, and they run the risk of looking like a white bluebell, which would be highly toxic, so snap the leaves and make sure they have a strong garlicky smell. It’s other defining feature is that the flower stems are triangular in cross section which bluebells are not. We use the stems and leaves as a sort of garlic chive, but the flowers have an amazingly mild garlic taste and look beautiful scattered on a salad. These aren’t flowers to use on a cake or desert given their strong garlic flavour.
They’re my absolute favourite edible flower at the moment because, unlike some of the others, they really add flavour as well as beauty.
Bolting brassicas
If you grow any brassicas or mustards at the moment you will be fighting a difficult battle against them bolting. All these plants are biennial and programmed to flower in spring, set seed and begin their two year life cycle again. It’s a bit of a law of diminishing returns trying to stop leafy greens from bolting, but cutting the flowers off can buy you a little time. All of their flowers are edible and whilst cabbage or kale flowers have a mild, savoury, broccoli taste, mustards, mizuna and rocket all have absolutely delicious fiery flowers. Again, I wouldn’t pop these on your pudding but they’re great as a garnish to add a bit of pep to savoury food.
