Candied Flower Cookies from The Secret Garden

 Since July is extra long, we get to do a Secret Garden bonus post! Garden-themed menus leave so many great options for dessert, so I decided to make a companion dessert to go with our Lavender Lemon Eclairs. I’ve been DYING to make candied flowers for this menu, so sugar cookies with lemon icing and candied violets sounded ideal. Like most of our bonus recipes, I’m keeping this one simple, so we’ll mostly just cover how to make the candied flowers (in the ingredients list, I’ve included links to the cookie and icing recipes I used). You can make your own cookies and icing, but if time is of the essence you can totally go with store bought. That’s what I love about this recipe—it can be as involved or as easy as you want!

 

Candied Flower Cookies

“The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet and on every side were sheaves of late lilies standing together—lilies which were white or white and ruby. He remembered well when the first of them had been planted that just at this season of the year their late glories should reveal themselves.”
— The Secret Garden

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 tbsp pasteurized egg white
• 1/4 cup castor sugar (If you don’t have castor, you can run regular sugar in a food processor for 6-9 pulses.)
• 1/4 tsp vodka, any flavor
• 6 edible flowers (Make sure the flowers you use are free of pesticides and other chemicals. To be sure they’re safe, I recommend growing them yourself or purchasing The Herbal Garden brand edible flowers, which some major grocery stores sell near the fresh herbs. I used violets, but you can use any of the edible flowers listed here).
• You’ll also need six sugar cookies and some icing. You can buy premade cookies and icing if you want, or you can make your own. I used sugar cookies from our Fairy Dust Star Cookies recipe and the lemon icing from our Lavender Lemon Eclairs.

Makes 6 flower-bedecked sugar cookies

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Place your flowers on a wire rack. In a medium-size bowl, whisk your egg white until it’s mostly foam.

   

2. You can use a clean paintbrush if you want, but if you don’t want to ruin a brush, just fold down most of the bristles of a pastry brush until you’re left with enough bristles to act as a paintbrush.
   
   

   

   You can fold down most of the bristles of the pastry brush to make a finer tip.

3. Dip your little cluster of bristles in the egg white and brush it on the top side of your flowers, being careful to get in all the little corners and crevices. You can hold the flowers while you do this, but I think it’s easier (and less messy) to brush them while they sit on the rack. Sprinkle on your sugar until your flowers are evenly coated.
   
   

   Making sure the top of the flower is completely coated in egg white will ensure that the entire side gets candied.

   

   DO NOT COAT THE BACK OF THE FLOWER (if you do, it will stick to the rack).

4. Let the flowers dry on the rack for 10 hours or overnight.

   

5. Drizzle icing over your sugar cookies and place your candied flowers in the middle (the icing should hold them in place). Voilà—dessert!