How to Decorate Food With Fresh Cut Flowers
Add color and beauty to your food dishes by decorating with freshly cut flowers. Many flowers are not only pleasing to the eye, but also to the palate. Using real flowers to decorate food is becoming trendy, especially on cakes -- wedding cakes in particular. Decorating with fresh flowers takes extra time and preparation, but the result is a food dish that is something above the ordinary. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Edible flowers
- Floral scissors
- Water
- Towels
- Plastic bags
- Plastic drinking straws
Instructions
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How to Decorate Food With Fresh Cut Flowers
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Make sure the flowers have not been treated with any pesticides. If you are getting the flowers from a florist, ask specifically for non-treated flowers. Also, make sure they are edible. Commonly found edible flowers include roses (usually used on cakes and desserts), lavender (good for adding flavor to most baked goods but also colorful as a food decoration), day lilies (stunning as a formal garnish) and marigolds. To see a list of even more edible flowers, click on the link in the resource section below.
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Cut the flowers off the stems, leaving about an inch of stem where it attaches to the bud or flower. Then, gently rinse the flowers in cool water.
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Lay the flowers on a towel to air dry. Once they have completely dried, place them in plastic bags and freeze them.
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Cut a drinking straw into three-inch pieces. Bend the bottom of the straw up and tape it closed. Add a tiny amount of water, and then insert the straw into the cake, forming a tiny vase. Note that you can skip this step if you are not placing the flowers on a cake.
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Remove the flowers from the freezer when you are ready to use them and insert them into the straws or arrange them onto the food dish as a side garnish. To add flower petals to the food itself, gently remove the petals from the base of the flower first (the base is usually white and can be bitter). Marigolds are popular in soups and add a spicy flavor along with a rich, golden color. Simply add the petals to the soup as you would any other ingredient. The leaves of young dandelions are tasty in salads and can be tossed right along with the lettuce. Carnations are also often used in salads. Sprinkle the sweet carnation petals on top of the salad as a light garnish after tossing.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Benjamin Earwicker/sxc.hu
