Jenny Bardwell is a long time friend who I’ve admired for her cooking talents for decades. She is the international czar of salt rising bread and a fabulous science teacher, international traveler and kind of a renaissance woman. She shared this violet recipe with me that is a cheap classy decoration for anything you want to fancy up a bit.
Jenny says: Here (see photo) are some violets that I have crystallized. I do this every year. When I had the Rising Creek Bakery, we placed these elegant candies on top of cakes, scones, and used them as wedding decorations.
Here are directions:
1. Prepare a deep purple color sugar by pressing food color into granulated sugar. My best color comes with a combination of blue and red color.
Then crack an egg open and place only the whites in a shallow bowl.
2. Pick your violets in the afternoon when they are are open and dry. It helps to keep a stem on it to use as a “handle”.
3. Using a watercolor paint brush, gingerly coat the surface of the flower with egg white, then place in a pile of purple sugar. Gently cover the flower with more purple sugar and tamp down lightly to coat the entire surface.
4. Pick up via your stem handle and place your flower on a plate with petals splayed out. Let dry about a week.
5. Box these up to keep safe till ready to decorate.They will last until next year!
You can eat that? 