Let them eat ….. flowers!

 

So said Marie Antoinette at Versailles, when the hungry mob was descending on the palace … well not ‘flowers’ but ‘cake’. Well the words attributed to her are ‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche’ which is not really cake!

What got me into edible flowers?

What set me on this edible flower quest was a recent family wedding where the wedding cake was a gorgeous spectacle of sponge with rhubarb and cream, lavishly decorated with flowers. Guests commented on a recent surge in popularity of edible flowers as a new thing, but I was keen to delve back into food history and check on the origins of their use.

History of edible flowers in a nutshell

Edible flowers have been used since ancient times to enhance the flavour and taste of food and drink. Especially common were lavender, roses and saffron which were also used for medicinal purposes. Lady Elinor Fettiplace was making use of violets in the Elizabethan period for syrups and sweets[1]. In Georgian times, recipes ranging from artichoke pies[2] to seed cake and stewed damsons all contained rose water. Victorian cooks, inspired by Mrs Beeton[3], made candied flowers to decorate cakes and sweets.  

Elderflowers make a simple sparkling wine

Elderflowers (rather than elderberries) were popular in the early 20^th century to create a light sparkling wine which could be used as a flavouring essence for cakes or junkets or a cool summer drink. Grandma Abson’s collection of recipes included this unpretentious Elderflower sparkling wine or cordial[4] .  Here is her recipe.  

Edible flowers for a modern cake

Putting my research into practice was important so inspired by the spectacular wedding cake,   I baked a simple Victoria Sandwich – you can find the recipe here -  and decorated it with edible violas and marigolds to make a stunning cake for a charity fundraising event. How could anyone resist Marie Antoinette’s suggestion to ‘Let them eat cake!’ even if she didn’t say it! The phrase first appears in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions published in 1765.

To note : Please check carefully which flowers are suitable to use in baking and food preparation as some can be dangerous to consume.

This is a shorter version of a longer piece about edible flowers published by Yorkshire Bylines

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[1] Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt book by Hilary Spurling 1986

[2] Margaretta Acworth’s Georgian Cookery Book by Alice and Feank Prochaska 1987

[3] Mrs Beeton’s Everyday Cookery and Housekeeping Book

[4] Grandma Abson’s Traditional Baking by Meryl White 2011

Going Bananas for …. Mango Buttercream

 

It took a trip to New York to experience the most irresistible slice of freshly baked Banana Bread I’ve ever tasted. But this wasn’t just any Banana Bread, it was warm, fresh from the oven and served with a silky, smooth Mango Buttercream, which turned a simple breakfast into a luscious treat.

Recreating a New York indulgence at home

The trick with the bananas is not to mash them up too much, so you can achieve a light, moist but rich texture.  You can use less sugar (e.g. half the amount) if you prefer not too sweet a mixture. This Banana Bread can be made with gluten free flour, if you add a splash of liquid (approx. 2-3 tablespoons of water or milk) to the final mixture. The walnuts are optional if you like a crunchy texture.

Banana Bread

What you need

225g self-raising flour

or 225g plain flour and 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

110g butter

110g golden caster sugar

50g chopped walnuts (optional)

2 eggs (beaten)

60ml milk

50g golden syrup (warmed)

3 bananas (mashed)

1 tbsp demerara sugar (for topping – optional)

How to bake

1.      Pre heat the oven to 180C/160C fan

2.     Line a 1kg/2lb loaf tin. Use a cake liner if possible.

3.     Sift the flour and salt in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

4.    Add the sugar (and walnuts if using).

5.     In a separate bowl, blend the egg with the milk. Add the golden syrup and stir in the mashed bananas.

6.    Add this to the dry ingredients and mix well.

7.     Turn into the loaf tin and sprinkle with demerara sugar, if desired.

8.    Bake for 1 hour (but check after 45 minutes) - a cake skewer should come out clean.

9.    Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Mango Buttercream

This Mango Butter cream works beautifully with Banana Bread. I made mango purée with 100g chopped mangoes – it works well with frozen mango pieces too – by pulsing the pieces in a food mixer until smooth. Then I added the purée to Grandma’s Buttercream recipe.

Mango Butter Cream

50g butter

110g icing sugar

Few drops vanilla essence

1-2 tbsps water

50g mango purée

Cream the butter and icing sugar. Add the vanilla essence and water. Then add the mango purée and blend until the buttercream is smooth and well blended.

We all probably had our fill of Banana Bread during lockdown, but I’m sure that spreading it with this tropical Mango Buttercream, you will fall in love with it all over again. Believe me, you won’t be able to resist when it’s warm, fresh and straight out of the oven, alongside this tangy perfect companion.

This is a shorter version of a longer piece I wrote for Yorkshire Bylines. Enjoy!

Roscas de Pascua – a family recip

An Easter recipe for Roscas de Pascua which Javi, a Spanish family friend, sent me recently, reminded me of the story in El Camino. Javi’s mum, who lives in Leon in northern Spain, makes these biscuits during la Semana Santa (Holy Week), in a tradition rather like my Grandma’s Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday. Javi’s sister in law’s mum also makes Roscas de Pascua but hers are fried rather like churros. In fact, there is a wide variety of Roscas de Pascuas, which are made over the Easter festivities, and cakes made for other festivals such as the brioche wreath, Roscon de Reyes for El Dia de los Reyes on 6 January. Here's the recipe from ‘la madre’ de Javi which I’ve translated from Spanish.

Ingredients

I egg and 1 egg yolk  (freeze the white of egg to use later)

110g granulated sugar

90g butter (cut into small pieces)

1 tbsp cinnamon

2 tbps aniseed liqueur or extract

Pinch of salt

245g flour

Preparation

1.      Bring the butter to room temperature.

2.     Beat the eggs and yolk of egg with the sugar until well mixed.

3.     Add the butter, cinnamon, aniseed liqueur to the egg and sugar mixture and mix well.

4.    Gradually add the flour and salt until it makes a soft dough.

5.     Place in the fridge to chill for at least an hour.

6.    Pre heat the oven to 200C

7.     Remove from fridge and place between 2 sheets of baking paper. Then roll out to thickness of ½ cm.

8.    Use a large cutter (I used a 10 cm diameter one but anything between 8 and 12 cms is good) to cut out the rounds. Then a smaller cutter to cut out the middle (I used an egg cup).

9.    Prick each biscuit with 2 forks to make a sign of a cross.

     Place in the oven for between 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on them to check they don’t burn!

Although they look deceptively plain, ‘Roscas de Pascua’ are very moorish. They have a crisp texture and a spicy cinnamon aroma. I made a batch last week and they keep well in an airtight tin. This quantity of ingredients makes around 10-12 Roscas.

 This is a short version of the article I produced for Yorkshire Bylines which you can read  here.

A slice of history today

 

Most of us have someone in our lives who have inspired us. For me, that person was my grandmother, whose love for baking shaped my own passion for the craft. At 63, Lizzie Abson moved in with my family after the tragic death of my mother soon after I was born, and as soon as I could stand on a chair, I watched, learned, and eventually inherited not just her recipes but her deep-rooted love for simple, delicious home baking.

Grandma Abson’s Treasured Collection of Recipes

Grandma Abson had begun to collect many of her recipes during her time in service but she continued through most of the 20th century as times and fashions changed. She wrote them out by hand on scraps of paper, postcards, in old exercise books and torn out of magazines.  She was an avid collector of other people’s favourites. Her sisters – Emma, Clara, Mabel, Alice, Edith and Ivy were also ‘in service’ across the country contributed their own specialities from Plum Pudding and Rock cakes to biscuits – creating a diverse and cherished assortment of traditional recipes.

In 2010, I collated her recipes into a book entitled ‘Grandma Abson’s Traditional Baking’ and sold them across the North of England. In fact, with radio and press coverage and distribution through bookshops and delivering talks and events they ‘sold like hotcakes.’  I just kept a small number back for my grandchildren for posterity.

Even today I get asked : ‘Have you still got a copy of Grandma Abson’s recipes?’ It’s a regular question whenever I’ve done a talk so I love to say it’s still around as an e-book so you can access those wonderful recipes.

Grandma was very proud of her baking, whether it was winning prizes or having family and friends sampling cakes and puddings. Grandma Abson’s legacy is more than just recipes; it’s a connection to the past, a reminder of the warmth and comfort that home baking brings. Her recipes remain as relevant today as they were decades ago, proving that simple, well-made food never goes out of style. In my family, we continue to bake her beloved cakes, biscuits, and preserves, keeping her traditions alive with every delicious bite. Check out the list of Recipes  and enjoy a slice of history today!

Around the world with Lemon Posset

 
Lemon Posset

They say that the best recipes are the ones with only a few ingredients and my friend Catty’s recipe for Lemon Posset ticks that box with just three. But even more intriguing is the story she tells of how this delicious dessert went around the world. Last Autumn, Catty embarked on a trip to Canada and New Zealand to visit various relatives. She made a fantastic travelogue entitled ‘Travels on a bucket list’ so her friends back home could keep up with her progress, offer words of encouragement and suggest tips for places they may have visited.

It was catching up with cousin Vivienne, who lives in the hills outside Dannevirke, which reminded Catty of her old Lemon Posset recipe. Vivienne is a keen cook but also a coeliac so her recipes don’t contain gluten. She made a treat for their meal together which she said Catty had made when Vivienne visited the UK in 1977. She made it again as a special memory of both visits. Here is the well-travelled Lemon Posset recipe :

Lemon Posset

600 ml cream

¾ cup caster sugar

Grated rind and juice of 2 lemons

To serve

Whipped cream or

lemon curd

berries

Makes 10-12 servings in small glasses

Place the cream and caster sugar in a small saucepan and stir as it comes to the boil. Once it boils, reduce the heat to keep gently boiling and time the mixture for exactly 3 minutes. This timing is very important to the ‘chemistry’ of the recipe. Remove from the heat and whisk in the grated rind and lemon juice. 

Cool, then pour into small glasses. Chill for at least 6-8 hours, or it’s even better if you can make it the night before.

Serve chilled with a small dollop of softly whipped cream/lemon curd and/or berries.

 Syllabub

Posset is very similar to Syllabub from the Georgian era but is thought to be more of a 19th century creation. I’ve made this glorious recipe several times now and my family love it. It’s rich and decadent and wonderfully smooth - one to savour for a special occasion, even to celebrate a family gathering after 50 years at the other side of the world!

This is a shorter version of my piece for  Yorkshire Bylines where you can read more about Catty's travels.

An Unexpected Gift: Turning Dulce de Leche into a Sweet Surprise

 

Sometimes, the best gifts are the unexpected ones. This story isn’t about an ‘unwanted’ present, but rather an unexpected delight—a tiny pot of dulce de leche paste.

 

Dulce de leche looks a lot like caramel, but unlike traditional caramel, which is made from butter and sugar, dulce de leche is made with milk and sugar. This Latin American favourite has a rich caramel colour and a deep, indulgent taste.

 

I received this little pot of joy at Christmas because it’s well known that one of my favourite ice cream flavours is dulce de leche. In fact, anything caramel—especially salted caramel—easily tops triple chocolate or rum and raisin for me. But what could I do with this tiny pot?

 

Most suggestions involve drizzling it over cakes, but since my pot contained more of a spreadable paste, I decided to incorporate it into a batch of homemade chocolate chip biscuits. The result? A perfect combination of flavours that made these biscuits truly special.

Chocolate Chip Biscuits with Dulce de Leche

What you need

·         110g/4oz butter (softened)

·         50g/2oz golden caster sugar

·         ½ tsp vanilla essence

·         25g chocolate chips

·         100g/4oz plain flour (sifted)

How to bake

1.      Preheat your oven to 190C (170C Fan) and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

2.     Cream the butter with the sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.

3.     Stir in the chocolate chips and flour to form a stiff paste.

4.    Drop dessertspoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared baking tray, spacing them well apart.

5.     Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden.

6.    Leave to cool for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

 

The combination of chocolate and dulce de leche elevated these biscuits from ordinary to extraordinary. The caramel-like richness blended beautifully with the chocolate, creating a treat that felt truly indulgent.

 

So, if you ever receive—or treat yourself to—a small pot of dulce de leche, don’t hesitate to get creative in the kitchen. You might just discover a new favourite recipe!

 

And funnily enough, I’ve also been gifted a pot of pistachio cream all the way from Sicily. That’s my next challenge! Did I mention that pistachio is another favourite of mine?