Baking & Gardening Go Together...

I saw this recipe in this month's Making magazine and had to try it!  My last attempt at crystallizing flowers from the garden was not very successful - they tasted good but were a bit claggy to look at.  So off we went and picked the best heads off the viola plants in the garden.  Previously during a dog walk, my daughter had handed me a small fistful of sad bluebells 'to go on the biscuits', and I had to disillusion her because the flowers have to be flat...and edible! (I'm not sure where she picked them from either - it may have been from someone's garden or from where dogs regularly do their business.)

Anyway, the biscuits are a pretty basic shortbread recipe with the only criteria being they must not be baked until too crispy as you have to make a small dent in the centre so that the viola will lay flat. I was a bit worried when the flowers were covered in sugar initially as they weren't really visible, but after an hour or so they looked just fine.  And taste fine too!

I'm really enamoured of my garden at the moment - it is all starting to look so pretty.  Over the past two years I have not really put the work in due to having a builder's yard on our doorstep for the first year and having the wall demolished & various earthworks going on as they built new houses during the second year.  However, since the builders left in March, I have been getting it all back in order with no disruptions.

The azalea is beautiful,

the Black-Eyed Susan is starting to climb up the pergola and the alliums are bursting into bloom.

We even have another good crop of figs coming on the patio.

I am glad the weather is not so good today though, I might actually get on with some work instead of wandering around inspecting the plants every half hour or so!

On the needles - still working on that complicated denim blue waistcoat
On the easel - still working on the two green parrots, but it should be finished today.