All the pretty flowers! Homebake Special

As we get to our 7th home-bake, it is getting harder to find an original theme. Last time we had "salt" - which confused many, but after just a little bit of research, it wasn't that hard, was it!? Same thing with "spice" - the previous theme - demonstrating that these themes though challenging are far from impossible, and a lot of fun.

Flowers have been used in cooking for a very long time, the classic example is rose water, the byproduct from distilling rose essential oil. This sweet and gentle scent was used in desserts in many cultures, while other flowers in the form of extract (orange blossom flower, another classic example), fresh flower (zucchini) or more frequently dried flowers (chamomile tea, anybody?). Floral fragrance quite frequently appears in our lives. So this became the lucky 7th theme of DDT home-bake!

Everyone who attended had stretched their creativity and ability to use their floral flavour in a style of dessert of their choice - there was plenty of lateral thinking and experimenting, not to mention trying to incorporate the subtle floral flavour into the dessert such that it isn't over-powered by other components of the dessert.

Jasmine creme brulee - I think I went overboard with the whipping and this became a sabayon rather than a custard. Oops. Next time I will be a little less vigorous in my whipping :P But the jasmine flavour was there in the creme :D [KT: due to the newly developed biceps from revamping your kitchen? gentle!! hehe]

Rose water shortbread - in the shape of caterpillars (very fitting - thanks MJ!!) - sweet and gently rosy, no wonder rosewater is such a popular dessert flavour. Also from MJ, to achieve her favourite colour - lavender meringues. Good amount of lavender scent in the meringues, pity the colour didn't quite turn out as she'd hoped. Still yummy.

For someone who doesn't cook and finds cooking stressful, her shortbread was probably one of the best I've had (I'd pay for shortbread of this quality!)! [KT: FedEx a box? pretty please...] Lovely shortbread with osmanthus syrup brushed on top, a little light, but next time we will know how much osmanthus to use in the syrup.

Another lavender offering - beautiful lavender jelly in trifle - pity the presentation is immediately ruined as we dug into it.

First timer JD - welcome!! - created a version of San Bo Luong, a classic Vietnamese sweet drink, using chrysanthemum infused jelly -  containing Chinese dates, lychee, seaweed, white fungus, and pearl barley - good enough to eat as a meal - deliciously hearty. It should be enjoyed icy cold, but I think it would be beautiful warm too. I'd never had seaweed sweet, must say it's better than savoury :P

Poor VH's dessert is left to last because I personally voted this one BEST of the day - wild hibiscus syrup infused poached pear - OH MY GOD it was gorgeous! Melt in your mouth pear with simply gorgeous colour, hibiscus flavour is subtle (slightly acidic - the flower described as "rhubarb and raspberry") but it was just a pleasure to consume. Not to mention a lovely colour :D

And to accompany our desserts, our drink of the day also matched the floral theme - Elderflower cordial in soda water - lovely fragrance, definitely refreshing and will become my pantry standard for surprise drop-in guests.

There you have it, we have explored many different floral flavours, but this had barely scratched the surface!! Orange blossom water was absent, as was violet. Given the possibilities out there, why not keep exploring and experimenting some more?

CS