Candied Rose Petals for Easter

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!

Candied rose petals are a fun and easy project to do with your kids. My Double Delight roses are blooming right now as you can see in the photo below. They'll make beautiful decorations for any dessert I may want to make.

For this project you will need:

1. Rose petals from your garden. Please make sure they are pesticide free (never been sprayed). Otherwise, you might be able to get some organic roses from Whole Foods or your local health food store.

2. One extra large egg white at room temperature. You will want to beat this with a few drops of water to thin the egg white a bit. Just beat until the water is mixed in and a few bubbles are showing.

Important: If you'll be serving candied rose petals to pregnant women, young children, the elderly, or anyone whose health is compromised, be sure to use powdered egg whites (from Martha Stewart's web site).

If you're uncomfortable using egg white click on this link here for a recipe that creates a sugar syrup for coating your rose petals.

3. Clean Paint brushes

4. Superfine sugar. If you don't have superfine sugar, you can put your regular white sugar in a food processor or coffee grinder and grind a bit (not too much or you'll get powdered sugar).

5. Cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper. If you plan to use the oven method to dry these, I would use parchment paper.

6. Spoon

Pluck and rinse your petals and then pat them dry.

Take a single petal

Paint the back and front with a thin layer of the egg mixture.

Now with the spoon drizzle some of the superfine sugar over the front and back, coating it completely. Gently tap off any excess sugar, and set on your parchment or wax paper lined cookie sheet to dry.

It can take 1 to 3 days for these rose petals to dry depending on the moisture in the air. They should be thoroughly dry before you use them. To make the process faster, you can put them in a warm oven at 150 degrees for several hours. Make sure your oven door is slightly open. You can store these rose petals for a year in an airtight container.

Enjoy!