Incredible Edibles: Art of Candying Flowers

For Jill Ann Williams, Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore has been more than just a place to revel in the beauty of plants and nature. There she learned how to garden and in doing so carved for herself a new career. These days, she’s not only an expert at growing flowers, she’s a master at turning them into gorgeous candied confections.

So much pleasure has the work brought her, in fact, that it led her to develop a kit containing all the necessary paraphernalia--except the flowers--so others can partake of the delicacies too. Called “Elegant Edible Flower Candying Assemblage,” the kit makes candying flowers among the sweetest of experiences.

Williams’ interest in candying flowers took root 10 years ago. A friend she was spending the afternoon with wanted to find crystallized violets to give to a relative. Unable to locate any store that stocked them, the friend finally obtained them by special order. When the violets arrived, Williams took one look at them and wondered what all the excitement was about. Except for their color, they amounted to little more than unidentifiable hard nuggets.

Examining the wild violets in her yard, Williams wondered if it would be possible to candy them. In a recipe book passed down from her grandmother, she found a recipe for the process. It said to string the violets on a thread, hang them on the back porch to dry and coat them with a mixture the principal ingredients of which were corn syrup and gum arabic. Williams, a registered medical technologist, made up her own formula based on the recipe. But after she applied the solution to some violets, she laid them over an upturned colander to dry and the blossoms stuck to it and were ruined.

Another method she tried--this one still being proposed by garden and cookbooks written today--used egg whites and sugar. After beating the whites, you brush them on the flowers, which are then sprinkled with sugar. But Williams says that technique fails to take into account the reaction triggered when sugar hits a substance containing moisture. In the case of a flower, its moisture is drawn to the surface and the bloom collapses.

To be a good candidate for drying and then candying--for if a plant can sail through one procedure, it will probably stand up well to the other--a flower must meet a long list of requirements. It must be not too hard to raise, untainted by pesticides (if you have a gardener, check to be sure no pesticides have been used), rather small, safe to eat and relatively pleasant tasting. It should hold its color, shape and resilience during drying and be durable enough to undergo candying and remain stable as decoration.

Faced with those criteria, Williams decided she had to grow flowers herself. Besides, buying them in the quantity she needs--usually she dries 300 blossoms of one type at a time--would eat up her profits. And because she candies flowers as a business, supplying them for wedding cakes, caterers and party hosts, she had one further obstacle: Not every flower sells.

The die cast, there remained one minor problem: She was no gardener. Except for raising an occasional tomato plant, she had not concerned herself much with outdoor beautification. But when she learned of the volunteers at Cylburn who operate the All-America display and test gardens there, she thought that by joining them she could acquire the skills she needed.

Special Garden

So enamored of gardening did she become that, in 1983, she donated to Cylburn a special garden for shade-loving plants in memory of her mother.

At home, Williams’ yard was blossoming with white violets; viola varieties Yellow Charms, Prince John and Princess Blue; Joker and Crystal Bowl pansies; signet marigold Yellow Gem; and Fairy and Sea Foam roses. There were also Bon Bon calendulas, Telstar dianthuses, feverfew and Primula veris (cowslip primrose), among others.

In experimenting with techniques and materials that would turn out a quality candied flower, Williams decided that drying--the oldest way of preserving food--would be the first step in the process. Because the flowers are eaten, she explained, the choice of a dehydrating agent is critical. Her search of the market turned up more than 25 different grades of silica gel. But regular silica gel, sold for drying flowers under various trade names, contains inedible blue chloride crystals that change color to show when the substance has absorbed its capacity of moisture and must be dried in the oven. The type of silica gel she uses is obtainable only in 200-pound quantities and is nontoxic and food-safe.

The treatment of the flowers after they are picked is important too. Flowers that have already started to wilt or deteriorate will be altogether done for after the drying process. For drying, Williams likes a flower stem 1/4-inch long. That’s enough to handle a flower and yet keep to a minimum the area where dirt, spider mites and insect eggs could collect.

Naturally, flowers for eating must be spanking clean. When picking, she collects them in a colander or salad spinner. If she is gathering more than one kind of flower, they are sorted into plastic bags as she picks. Separating them at the outset speeds processing. Because drying times differ according to the size and thickness of flowers, some will be ready before others. Mixing types therefore risks failure.

At the kitchen sink, Williams rinses the flowers in the colander (or strainer) under running water for a minute or so. Then she suspends the strainer for about 15 minutes in a container half full of cold water to soak out the impurities. Finally, she whirls the flowers dry in a salad spinner. If you don’t have a salad spinner, leave the flowers in the colander, cover it with a terry-cloth tea towel and shake the flowers against it “like mad,” Williams says.

Stored in the refrigerator in zipper-type airtight plastic bags or containers, washed flowers will keep about three weeks. During this time, moisture may again accumulate and require removal.

You can also dry the flowers immediately after cleaning them. Williams’ kit gives full instructions for this along with the candying procedure. In essence, drying is a matter of laying the flowers face up or face down on a bed of silica gel in a container and covering them with more silica gel. When they have dried, which may take as little as 24 hours depending on the size and quantity processed, the silica gel is carefully poured off and the flowers are dusted with a pastry feather (included in the kit) to remove any remaining granules. The silica gel provided in the kit will process about 40 smallish flowers.

At this point, the flowers may be candied.

Candied in a Jiffy

Whereas Williams candies large batches at a time, a few flowers can be candied in a jiffy. With the candying gel that Williams developed, which comes in a tube, you squeeze a bead of gel onto the face of a flower and, with a pastry feather, stroke the gel to cover it. The tube need not be refrigerated after opening, Williams says, and its contents won’t dry up. A 1 1/2-ounce tube will candy about 175 blossoms. After the coated flowers have rested on a plastic grid for about 15 minutes, you can sprinkle them with sugar if you like.

Williams’ flower candying kits may be ordered by mail. Write Sudden Elegance, 3724 Cedar Drive, Baltimore, Md. 21207. Enclose $15 for the kit plus $3 for shipping and handling.

Note precautions in this story: flowers must be untainted by pesticides and safe to eat. Also, regular silica gel, sold for drying flowers under various trade names, contains blue chloride crystals that are inedible.

The type of silica gel used must be nontoxic and food-safe.