SC - Saxon Violets Again!

[Laura C. Minnick]

Hello again!

Well, I have experimented. And I'm not yet sure what to think of my
experiments.

I tried Candied Violets. Several of you sent URLs for recipes and I
looked at them. They seem to fall into two groups- those based on egg
white, and those based on gum arabic. Well, I had not idea if gum arabic
was period and was used for such things (though I have been assurred
off-list that it is and was- but I didn't know this before I started),
and as I was hoping to take them to an event with me, I wanted to try to
make them period (novel concept, yes? ;-). So I used the egg white
recipe. Had hassles with the eggs- either not beat enough or beat too
much, and they would always break down into a layer of foam with runny
under. Poo. Dipped the flowers carefully (took awhile, there was, oh,
120-150 or so) and then in the sugar. Mostly I have blobs of sugar with
a wilted flower inside. Hmm. You don't taste much- the hit of sugar, and
the the flower gets stuck in the back of your throat. Very delicate
flavor _after_ the sugar is gone. They're ok, and interesting, but not
what I was expecting. The little Violet pastilles in my purse taste more
of violets, you know?

Questions: Could I thin the egg white? It felt too thick, and it tended
to collect between the petals, in big drops, that picked up alot of
sugar. I felt like it would be more effective if thinner. (And no, I'm
not afraid of the tiny bit of egg white I might ingest from one of these
flowers. Or of real egg nog. I _am_ afraid of raw poultry, raw
hamburger, and restaurants where the employees cross-contaminate to raw
vegetables!)
	How would the gum arabic be different? or would it? I have not worked
with it, so I don't know if it would have given different results.

I was wondering, though. Would it work to candy flowers like we make the
candied orange peel, by making a hot syrup and dipping them in that?
Somehow I think that might have been closer to what I was expecting,
though I'm not sure. I have raw flowers encased in crunchy sugar. Surely
the lark's vomit is next...

I also tried Violet Jelly. You would be amazed (or maybe you wouldn't, I
don't know) at how many violets it takes to make two cups of the darn
things! Lots and lots! The recipe itself was fairly simple- cover the
violets with boiling water, let stand for 24 hrs. pour off the infusion,
add lemon juice, pectin, bring to a boil, add the sugar, bring back to a
boil, boil for a minutes, skim, pour into jars, and seal. Well, as
expected, teh infusion was an interesting slightly greenish blue. Until
I added the lemon juice, whereupon it turned the most amazing and
gorgeous Shocking Pink! (Yeah! Chemistry at home! Can we say acids and
bases?)If I hadn't known better I would have thought it was one of those
synthenic dyes! Barbie would be proud! Anyway, it's been boiled and
bottled and yet I don't have jelly. What I have appears to be syrup.
Syrup with a bite, lots of sweet, and no discernable violet flavor. It
tastes faintly 'flower', but not much. Bright pink syrup. Cyclamen pink.
Pink geranium pink. Care Bear pink. (Did I tell you it was an alarming
shade of pink?)

Questions: Could I have too much lemon juice? It said the juice of one
lemon, and lemons aren't uniform. Would that account for it not 'setting
up'? It would account for the rather tart flavor, despite the sugar.
Could the pectin I bought today at the grocery have been an old batch?
But it doesn't get old like yeast does, does it?
	About the flavor- I noticed when I poured off the infusion that most of
the scent was gone, and it smelled mostly of wet 'plant stuff'. (It
smelled great when I first poured the boiling water on.) Could that be
why there really isn't much flavor, because the scent is gone? How could
soemthing so pretty taste so 'blah'?

And- is there any way to re-boil and re-jar a batch of jelly, to
'rescue' it? Or have I simply got a very interesting batch of
third-grader pink syrup?

Maybe I should do something simpler, like cuskynoles...

'Lainie