Your Edible Botanical Garden
Whether foraging in the wild or plucking straight from your garden, there’s a host of delights out there just waiting to be eaten. Browse our best botanical ingredients and recipes below.
Edible Flowers
Our edible pressed flowers or edible flowers and leaves are perfect to decorate cakes and cookies or float in cocktails or iced teas, or even to add to salads.
Craving an extra special teatime treat? Our Blueberry & Lemon Curd Loaf is topped with edible flowers and looks so impressive.
Looking for a healthier option? Salads that look as pretty as a picture and taste as good as they look. Why not try our super easy Strawberry Salad or Baby Leaf Salad with edible flowers.
Viola
Hardy perennials that are easy to grow, violas will thrive in a hanging basket or rockery and their colourful, delicately scented flowers bring salads to life. Given their glorious wash of colour, they’re magical on desserts, whether garnishing a cheesecake or colouring ice cream or sorbet. Whilst it’s the flowers that catch the eye, the leaves can also be eaten; serve as an alternative to
spinach or cabbage – just a few minutes of boiling or sautéing does the job nicely. And like all edible
plants, they’re full of goodness! A rich source of antioxidants, historically the viola has been used to ward off colds.
Dianthus
From the carnation family of plants, dianthus have a taste not dissimilar to cloves, although much milder. The dainty white flowers and glowing red centres give a smattering of colour when tossed amongst green leaves, transforming even the simplest salad into something that screams ‘EAT ME’. The flowers also make a wonderful alternative to sugar-crafted ones when baking cakes, and the petals look super floating on a flute of fizz or scattered on vanilla ice cream.
Fruits & Essence
Our range of Nielsen-Massey Flavoured Extracts are the perfect substitute for the real thing with a range from lemon, orange, coffee, vanilla and more!
Wild Garlic
A walk through deciduous woodland in early spring may well alert your nose to the scent of wild garlic, or ramsons as it is often known. Thriving in wet soil and sometimes spreading as far as the eye can see, you’ll usually find it in March but it can be found anytime from January onwards, depending on climate and the denseness of surrounding trees. All parts of the plant are edible, the bulbs being the most pungent, while the leaves become subtler in flavour once the white flower emerges. More delicate than the garlic cloves we usually eat, it’s delicious both raw and cooked, added to white sauces, baked with bread or finely chopped and used to garnish potatoes, pizzas, pasta, salads and meat. Be aware when picking wild garlic that it bears a similarity to the poisonous Lily of the Valley – if you have the right plant, when rubbed between your fingers the leaves should give off a garlic smell.
Dandelion
So much more than its undeserving reputation as an encroaching weed, dandelions are actually really good for you and lend themselves to all manner of recipes. The roots are often prepared in herbal remedies but the leaves and flowers are pretty much ready to eat, bar a good rinsing of course. Full of vitamins A, C and D as well as iron, zinc and calcium, try the leaves in salad or on sandwiches – with a slightly bitter taste and peppery edge, they’re not dissimilar to rocket, and best eaten in early
spring when at their most flavoursome. If picking in summer, boil or sauté for 2-3 minutes and serve like you would other greens, or add to spinach or cabbage. The flowers make a lovely garnish to salads or Mediterranean dishes, and are simply delicious when deep-fried like a herbal tempura.
Natural Tea & Herbal Infusions
Beragmot
Bergamot – the herb rather than the fruit used to flavour Earl Grey tea – makes a charming addition to any edible garden; hardy, handsome and with a subtle citrus flavour. Related to the mint family, bergamot can be grown outdoors and releases a delightful aroma. Both the stems and leaves are edible and make a delicious salad garnish as well as a fine digestif infusion for tea. The curly petals keep their colour even when dried for pot pourri. What’s more, bees and butterflies love it!
Mint
Ever buy mint to use in your cooking? Ever considered growing your own? As plants go, it’s one of the
easiest, hardiest and most generous with its yield – in fact, the main problem is stopping it taking over. Simply grow in pots to prevent it becoming too rampant, and for best results, start with a plant rather than growing from seed. Once established – which won’t take long – you’ll have a herb to complement all manner of culinary treats, from potatoes to lamb and soups to tea. And if you’re throwing a cocktail party, you’ll be able to make the finest juleps and mojitos known to man. A wonderful herb that’s a tonic for the
senses and a soother of the stomach.
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