"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful;
they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. " Luther Burbank
Pelargoniums with scented- leaves (which are fragrant all the time) will give a delicious flavour to your food. Elizabeth David, a great British cookery writer of the mid 20th century, was a user of pelargonium leaves. She left behind many interesting recipes for cooking with scented flowers. She used to stick a few leaves of peppermint geranium /
Pelargonium Tomentosum when made jellies and said that the leaf of a sweet-scented geranium gives an incomparable flavour when cooked with blackberries for jelly.
"Qui pingit florem, floris non pingit odorem." / "Who paints the flower does not paint the flower's fragrance."
You'll became also fan of their flavour if will use her recipe for pelargonium-flavoured blackberry and apple pie:
Pelargonium-flavoured blackberry and apple pie
Ingredients:
4 pelargonium leaves
500g Bramley apples
275g blackberries
125g sugar
Zest of one lemon
For the pastry:
175g plain flour
80g unsalted butter
Pinch salt
1 egg yolk mixed with a little ice-cold water
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Sift the flour with the salt and either rub the butter into the flour by hand, or pulse in a food processor until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add just enough of the egg/iced water mixture to bring the mixture into a ball and allow the pastry to rest in the fridge while you prepare the fruit.
Peel, core and slice the apples and put in a bowl with the blackberries, lemon zest, sugar and torn pelargonium leaves. Mix gently and pile the prepared fruit into a one-litre pie dish or one with a lip around the edge.
Roll out the pastry, dampen the edge of the dish with a pastry brush and place a thin strip all the way round, pressing down with your fingers to secure it. Brush the strip with the pastry brush to dampen and roll out the pastry to fit the top of the dish, lay the pastry over the fruit and pinch the edges. If you have pastry left over, roll it out, press a pelargonium leaf on to it to make imprints, cut around the shapes and use the pastry leaves to decorate the pie. Pierce the top with the tip of a sharp knife and brush the pie with a little milk, scattering some caster sugar over the top.
Put into the preheated oven and once the pastry is crisp and beginning to colour lower the heat to 175C and cook for another 20 minutes.
You can try this recipe with other scented pelargonium leaves too. Believe me, your taste should be delighted by Pelargonium Capitatum, Pelargonium Odoratissimum, or Pelargonium Graveolens flavours.
Serve with cream or ice cream.
"Eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. " Mark Twain
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