Maddocks Farm Organics featured in West Country Wedding Food Trends.

Maddocks Farm Organics was delighted to be featured as one of the West Country’s Finest Food Producers in this latest trends for weddings guide.

This lovely wedding supplement, which featured Emily Harmston Cakes wonderful cake using our edible flowers, went out with issues of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset Life so will hopefully bring our lovely flowers to the attention of some lovely brides for 2015.

So pleased!

Maddocks Farm Organics featured in West Country Wedding Food Trends.

Rose Petal Syrup.

How to make Rose Petal Syrup

Rose Petal Syrup is incredibly easy to make and tastes simply wonderful.

I generally use white sugar for making my floral syrups but my lovely friend Margie from MadebyMargie gave me the following recipe which is far superior.

Recipe directly from Margie’s blog

I’ve used Agave instead of white sugar because it’s much better for you…and as an extra bonus, it’s even easier than using sugar!

To make the syrup:
equal quantities of Agave and water, 1 cup of each

3 roses, make sure they are organic and free from insecticides…order yours from Maddocks Farm Organics to get the most beautiful ones around.

Give your roses a little rinse and then add all three ingredients to a saucepan.  

Simmer gently for about 15 minutes, by which time it will look like this:

Turn off the heat and allow to cool. The longer you leave the rose petals in, the more intense the flavour of your syrup will be. After a couple of hours (or even overnight), strain the petals out and pop your syrup in a container where it will live happily in the fridge for a month or so.

This syrup is marvellous for drizzling over cakes and even more delicious splashed into a whole range of summer cocktails. How about with champagne?

Rose Petal Syrup.

Nasturtium Cordial

 

Nasturtium cordial is a stunning and refreshing summer drink when diluted with sparkling water and can also be used as a syrup for flavouring cocktails etc.

200grms of organic caster sugar

225ml of water

50 nasturtium flowers

large sprig of lemon thyme or lemon verbena (a small piece of finely chopped ginger is also a great addition)

squeeze of lemon juice

Pop all the ingredients (except the lemon juice) into a pan and gently bring to the boil stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. Cover, take off the heat and allow to sit for until completely cold and then strain out the flowers and herbs.

Decanted into a clean sterile bottle and the cordial will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge.

 

Nasturtium Cordial

Forget-me-not Cocktail

Ingredients:

1 oz Apple Schnapps

3/4 oz Cherry Brandy

1/4 oz of Kirschwasser Cherry Brandy

Who could resist a cocktail named after such a dainty wee flower and the fact that forget-me-nots are edible flowers means that this is a cocktail has my name on it.  Okay, okay - I know - most of them do have my name on them! 

Living in deepest darkest Devon I couldn't get hold of Kirchwasser Cherry Brandy so I used a full ounce of regular. I suspect that the Kirchwasser is a far more refined version and I have probably committed some cardinal sin but to my uninformed palate it tasted just fine. 

This drink can also be made longer and less potent with the addition of a long draught of cranberry or grape juice and some ice. Enjoy.

Edible Flowers: Bellis Confetti for cocktails

Edible flowers make a lovely additions to cocktail glasses and none more so that bellis daisies. These little beauties are amongst the first edible flowers to appear in the Spring and continue to produce flowers for months to come. Their confetti like petals are very popular with the chef fraternity who love to sprinkle them on a range of sweet or savoury dishes.

To create a petal rim to your cocktail glass mix the petals with some caster sugar. About 1/3rd petals to 2/3rds sugar.

Turn your glass upside down and carefully dip the rim of your cocktail glass in a shallow dish or saucer of sugar syrup or cordial (we like elderflower). Lift it out and hold it there for a moment or two to ensure that the syrup has dripped off and is not going to run down the glass when you right it. Then carefully dip the glass into the petal/sugar mixture so that it sticks to the glass.  Shake off any surplus and right your glass.

One of the nice things about this recipe (yes I know I can only very loosely describe this as a recipe!) is that it can be done literally hours in advance and the petals will continue to look great.

If you are serving tequila then you could rub the rim of the glass with a squeeze of lime juice before dipping the glass in a mixture of salt and petals instead. 

Black Velvet Cocktail

Celebrate St Patrick's Day in style!

Stunning picture by www.neilwhite.co.uk

 Black Velvet Cocktail

½ flute of champagne

½ flute of guiness

According to the official Guiness website this famous drink was invented in 1861 at Brook’s Club in London. Everybody was in mourning for the late Prince Albert and the steward at the club decided that even the champagne should be put into mourning and mixed it with Guiness.

To make, pour the chilled champagne into the bottom of a flute or other suitable glass. To retain a colour separation add the chilled guiness slowly by running it down the back of a large spoon.

We have garnished ours with some wild lucky plum sorrel. Baby shamrocks for the luck of the Irish!

Top of the morning to you all!

Thank you to the wonderful Neil White for the photo!

  

Edible Flowers for Summer Drinks & Wedding Cocktails

Whilst outside we are all starting to think about Christmas and the frost has finally reduced the last of the edible flowers to pulp, in my head I am planning the flowers that we are going to grow for next year and we already have three times the number of weddings in the 2014 order book than we had this year which is very exciting.

I'm not sure whether it is because the weather has been kinder to us this summer or whether is it because people are growing more adventurous about eating flowers but we've had a lot of flowers going out all over the country for cocktails and other summer drinks this year. We have edible flowers heading to London for the cocktail set; to smart catering companies for corporate events and weddings; to one of my favourite customers who is producing a cocktail book next year (but more on that later) and also directly to brides for their wedding drinks.

Maddocks Farm Organics edible flowers also appeared in cocktails on the sofa at RHS Chelsea Flower Show where they were enjoyed by Alan Titchmarsh and Joe Swift and in Lavender cocktails on  Sunday Brunch where they were tried by the lovely Simon Rimmer, Tim Lovejoy and their guest, Olympic Athlete,  Christine Ohuruogu.




My favourite wedding of 2013 was that of the lovely Carla and Nick . Carla's fabulous mum Marion and her partner Cliff have been working at Maddocks Farm Organics for nearly18 months under the WWOOFing scheme so they are very much part of the family and Carla and Nick's wedding was the first opportunity for Maddocks Farm Organics to grow traditional wedding flowers for Carla's bouquet and to decorate the venues instead of just the usual edible flowers - extremely nerve wracking stuff but the bride was extremely happy and Marion did a wonderful job of arranging everything.


 Edible Flowers in your Wedding Drinks

Edible flowers work brilliantly in Wedding drinks irrespective of whether your wedding is a formal ‘champagne all the way’ kind of do or whether you are casually pitching a teepee in the back garden and opting for the DIY route.

Edible flowers come in all shapes and sizes and add a wonderful sense of glamour and celebration to Weddings and other special occasions.  Pimms has long been associated with the beautiful blue stars of borage flowers and  tagetes work well citrus based drinks. Snapdragons are wonderful at ‘snapping’ onto the rim of glasses and work particularly well with very fizzy drinks such as champagne. A confetti of lovely petals will make any drink look appealing and brides should opt for smaller rather than larger blooms with drinks so that they compliment rather than compete with the drink.

As important as adding ‘class to the glass’ they can also make the poor drivers’ non-alcoholic offering a lot more interesting and appealing.  It’s lovely to be able to really push the boat out for the designated drivers and also for children by making lovely fruit based punches. To be fair over the past few years the quality of the ready made soft drinks that you can buy in the supermarkets has improved dramatically but there are also many recipes on-line for lovely non-alcoholic punches and cocktails and adding fresh herb, fruit and edible flowers transform these into something really special.

As well as using flowers whole to garnish drinks, petals can also be crushed with salt or sugar to coat the rim of glasses for cocktails. They then form little jewels of flavour and colour that are just stunning.

Edible flowers are also wonderful set in ice either on their own or with mint to add some lovely colour and flavour to drinks and these can be done well in advance to be added to the drinks at the last minute. It is worth noting that ice cubes don’t have to be made purely of water that just dilute the drinks as they melt. I had a wonderful Gin based cocktail a few weeks back which had ice cubes made from Elderflower Cordial that released its wonderful flavour and fragrance as it melted changing the drink from one thing to another. Lemon juice can be added along with the flowers or lime or ginger. It’s entirely up to you.

Thank you to our lovely real life bride Carla and her mother Marion for allowing the photos. All photos takes by Maddocks Farm Organics using our edible flowers which have also featured in cocktails at Chelsea Flower Show and on Channel 4s Sunday Brunch. Details of our edible flowers can be found at www. maddocksfarmorganics.co.uk .

You can order edible flowers for cocktails or drinks direct from our on line shop  www.maddocksfarmorganics.co.uk  - http://www.maddocksfarmorganics.co.uk/cocktail_box.html