Scratch Session | Edible Flowers and Spring Wreaths

A couple weeks ago I hosted another homesteading workshop at my house here in Portland, and this time we dove into floral design and working with edible flowers. The incredibly talented Sarah from Selva Floral Design hosted the floral design portion of the workshop and Christiann and I co-hosted the edible flower portion. Since it was mother’s day weekend, Sarah’s mom, Jo, and my mom, Jill, also joined us, which, along with the mother-daughter attendees that came, made for a really fun gathering of wonderful women. We started off by candying edible flowers (I have a blog post about how to do this here), and while they were drying we made wreaths with fresh spring flowers. Sarah brought florals that would dry well, too, so that we could re-use our wreaths year after year, and we use dried grape vine wreaths from Afloral as the base. After that we had a wide-ranging spread of edible flowers for lunch, including jasmine green tea-braised pork shoulder, feta with radish blossoms from my garden, blueberry soup topped with calendula, and roasted brussels sprouts with hazelnuts and lavender. It was really interesting to taste and see edible flowers applied in such a variety of dishes, since most folks usually just stick to using them in sweet applications. All the beautiful dishes, glassware, and flatware on the table were from the kind folks at anthropologie who let us use them for the workshop. After that, Christiann and I pull out the mini-caked we had baked the day previously and everyone got to decorate them with glaze and the edible flowers they candied which had now dried. It was such a fun afternoon and I felt so lucky to have such a warm, friendly, and funny group of women in my home for the day.

{ Gardening Workshop Info + Registration }

Thank you to our sponsors below, for their continued support of my creative endeavors!

Whole Foods | ingredients

Heirloomed Collection | tea towels

Steven Smith Teamaker | various tea boxes

Afloral | grapevine wreaths + twig wreaths 

Vermont Creamery | various cheese + butter

Heart Coffee Roasters | Ethiopian coffee beans

Anthropologie | Vases for each attendee + place settings:  Amparo highball glasses in clear + Gilded Cornet flatware + Estrella dinner plates , side plates and pasta bowls 

Iced Steven Smith white peony tea infused with fresh peaches

Lavender scones

Orange blossom cardamom bread

Rosemary salted compound butter

Wild blueberry soup with Vermont Creamery vanilla creme fraiche + calendula

Vermont Creamery feta cheese with black lava salt & radish blossoms

Roasted brussels sprouts with hazelnut & lavender

Braised jasmine green tea pork shoulder

Orange blossom cakes with a lavender glaze (take home)