open handen met bloemen

Edible flowers regularly appear among food trends and well-known chefs like to use them to brighten up their dishes. They are ideal as an original, colourful decoration, but you can also use them to add extra flavour to salads or desserts, for example. Would you like to create an original twist in your dishes or take your cocktails to a higher level? Try edible flowers! You don't have to go straight into nature. Edible flowers can be found here. 

11 tips for cooking with edible flowers

If you start thinking about where you can add a flower in drinks and dishes, you will undoubtedly get a taste for it. The possibilities are endless. Try it and let your creativity run wild.

✔ In an ice cube. It couldn't be easier and it's so stylish. Push a small flower into each pocket of your ice cube tray, fill with water, freeze and you're done!
✔ Cocktails, drinks and even tea can be made festive with a flower in or on the edge of the glass. Starflower or borage, with its blue flowers, is a winner. A little lavender in a glass of champagne or cava is delicious. Do not use too much, because lavender quickly predominates. Rosehip flowers are ideal for tea.
✔ Salads: choose flowers according to the colour with which you want to brighten up your salad. Oriental salads can be given extra flavour with spicy flowers such as coriander flowers. For a fresh salad, use mint flowers or starflower (borage).
✔ Use in pestos and marinades.
✔ Dip zucchini flowers in tempura (a Japanese batter) and deep fry them. Heavenly!
✔ Desserts and cakes are mainly about the decorative effect and less about the taste of the edible flowers. Choose colour with marigolds, lavender flowers, rose petals, cheese herb or a mix of flowers.
✔ Sprinkle some daisies in the soup or dandelion petals over rice pudding, rice or even pasta.
✔ Give your cheese platter or cheeseboard more colour with contrasting flowers. Think of East Indian cherry or fragrant flowers of thyme or lavender.
✔ Flavoured sugar: put some fragrant flowers in sugar, let it steep for 4 weeks and let your guests be amazed with this original sugar.
✔ Elderflower syrup or lemonade you probably know. Lavender is also very tasty to make syrup from.
✔ Vinegar or oil: fill a jam jar or jar with flowers. Pour the vinegar on top and leave to stand for 1 to 4 weeks. Then sieve out the flowers and use the vinegar or oil in salads and vinaigrettes.

salad with edible flowers, champagne with flowers, cake with flowers

Eat flowers? Choose unsprayed, organic flowers

If you want to work with edible flowers, don't just go into the meadow to pick a stock. Not every flower is edible. A quick check online gives you certainty. If you can't find anything about a flower, it's probably poisonous and inedible.

Only use unsprayed flowers. It sounds tempting to pick dandelions in the park or along the edge of the road, but many municipalities spray their parks and public gardens. Also take into account exhaust fumes that can pollute flowers in the verge. Pansies that you have just bought are not okay. If you planted them in your garden last year, you can. Do not eat flowers from bouquets either. These are often treated to stay beautiful for a long time.

How to process edible flowers?

Pick the flowers in the morning, then they will contain the most moisture and will become limp less quickly. It is better not to rinse, because the flowers will lose their flavour. Do you still want to clean them? Soak them briefly in water.

Keep the flowers in the fridge in a container with a damp piece of paper or in a paper bag in the vegetable drawer.

Remove the pistils from the flowers before using or serving them. These can cause allergic reactions and the pollen can influence the real taste of the flowers. Violet, honeysuckle, clover, lavender and similar flowers do not have a large pistil in the middle. You don't have to remove anything and you can eat it in no time.

Where to buy edible flowers?

It is best to buy the edible flowers at a specialist shop, health food store or online. There are also dried edible flowers. They have a longer shelf life and are the perfect decoration on cakes, desserts, pastries and many other dishes.