Using Edible Flowers at Your Wedding Breakfast

Some flowers can make a beautiful garnish, plate decoration or delicious ingredient at your wedding breakfast...

Flowers aren’t just the concern of florists; they are as much for pretty plates as they are for beautiful bouquets.  Look to your garden for ingredient inspiration.

Here are some examples:

• Crystallised violets and sugared rose petals add a delightful vintage touch to any dessert.
• Lavender flavoured biscotti with crème brulee or lamb marinated in lavender for a divine taste.
• Bright orange nasturtiums, marigold* petals, dandelion and tiny blue borage for garnishing salads.
• Courgette and squash flowers – tempura and garnish a risotto or fill them with fresh crab meat as a delicate canapé.
• Borage flowers – I can’t drink Pimm’s without them now (word of advice for gardeners – plant carefully – plant one borage plant and next year you will have ten).
• Hibiscus flower buds in glass cups, open into a beautiful tea.
• Daylily (lilies are poisonous but this isn’t a real lily) – fabulous if stripped into individual petals in a salad and also makes a great ingredient for an omelette.
• All herb flowers are edible, look pretty and often more flavoured than the herb leaves.
• Chive flowers – perfect to decorate delicate dishes such as smoked salmon parfait and cucumber salad.
• Pea shoots and bean flowers make for sophisticated toppings for sea bass.
• Camomile – keep calm with freshly brewed tisanes.
• Bergamot – amazing deep red and really useful in rice & pasta dishes, with pork or as a vibrant topping to salads.

NEVER use the following as garnishes or décor: foxglove, daffodil, crocus, lily of the valley. If you are in doubt, don’t eat it!

*BE AWARE that asthmatics may suffer allergies to daisies and marigolds.

Article by Wedding Catering Specialist Julie Gray

Read more Wedding Catering Advice articles

Read other Wedding Advice articles