Thursday 16 December 2010

Bug central and pretty sugared flowers .


Thank you for all your well wishes on my last blog post, they are really appreciated.  Unfortunately eldest Sweetpea went down with the bug a couple of nights ago so we had two children being sick and one coughing all night - fun times!  The up-side is that we all snuggled in bed yesterday just chilling out all day and all did some sewing (apart from little Sweetpea who sorted buttons).   They all seem a lot better now (fingers crossed) although I do feel a bit off colour but I am hoping that is just lack of sleep.  Thank goodness for on-line shopping as I would have been stuffed otherwise with a week out of my Christmas shopping schedule due to sickness as the kiddies are off from tomorrow onwards :-)  Oh how I hate Christmas shopping.

Well enough of my moaning, now for some lovely brightness on this grey, dark and cold day (well here in the UK anyway, I bet it is lovely in other countries).

I  bought some Violas a few weeks ago to bring some brightness into the dull winter garden and then pondered on making them into sugared flowers.  I remembered reading somewhere that you could eat Violas and Pansies so looked up how to sugar them.

First I picked the flowers and then washed them to make sure we didn't get any sugared caterpillars :-)



I then asked the chickens nicely for some of their eggs and used the egg whites to paint over the petals.
   

I then scattered caster sugar over the petals and then left the flowers to dry overnight.  I think I could have done with a sugar shaker however to give a finer look, also I think you can buy super fine granulated sugar which would probably look better.


I then popped these in an airtight container until I had time to bake some cakes.  This happened to be a week or so later (that is what happens when you are a Mum of 3 lol).  I then had to find the time to ice the cakes, which was another few days later (hence the rushed crappy looking iced finish above :-)).  I did however love love love the glittery finish to these lovely flowers.  They also store fantastically as the egg white seems to seal the colour and moisture into the flower so maybe next time I will make a bigger batch and store them away for a while. 

Take care all of you and keep those bugs at bay :-)
x