Cooking Series: Edible Flower Recipes, Almond Fairy Cakes with Candied Borage Flowers, P2

July 14, 2014

UPDATED September 5, 2018

Photo Source: Unsplash,

The ephemeral flowers emerge a bright orchid hue in the early morning, and within hours will transform into the rich periwinkle hue they are known for. But wait too long and the flowers will have faded and shriveled, so it took me a few days to harvest enough flowers for an entire batch of cupcakes. I’d go out each morning after the flowers had turned blue and carefully snip off the periwinkle-colored blossoms. They were then candied and set out to dry. The next day, same thing with another handful or two of flowers. Depending on how many plants you have you may be able to do it all in one day.

The candying process is quite simple, just a thin brushing of egg white (I used a pasteurized carton egg white) and a sprinkle of granulated sugar (or superfine sugar, if you have it). It helps to have a bit of a stem to hold on to while you work, so keep that in mind when harvesting your flowers.

When the flowers dry, they will darken and shrivel slightly, but if you’ve been diligent about giving them a nice even coat of egg and sugar, will retain much of the brilliant blue hue even after a few days.

While I used borage, this same technique can be used for other edible flowers such as violets and pansies. I tried to candy a few purslane flowers but the petals were tissue thin and unable to support the weight of the egg white, let alone the sugar. You could certainly also use sugar or buttercream flowers if foraging for edible flowers isn’t your thing.

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