Sugar Cookies with Edible Candied Violas and Violet Flavored Royal Icing

Everybody knows that flowers are beautiful, but they also have stories to t
ell. Today, we’re going to work with violets - real, live ones - for a couple of reasons. First, they mean something. Traditions tell us that violets symbolize innocence, modesty, and love, but for me, they mean even more.

For me, they help me remember my friend Ella’s sister, who was pregnant with a little baby girl who went to heaven even before she was born. If she’d lived, she would have been named Violet, and Ella’s sister named her midwifery practice after little Violet. So these cookies mean a lot to me. First, they remind me of that little baby. Then, they also remind me of all the other little babies that Violet Midwifery is still bringing into the world. And of course, they’re also good to eat!

And, yes, we’re going to eat the flowers, too. But this is where you have to be careful. Some flowers are edible, but some will make you very sick. The edible ones I know about include citrus blossoms, clover, daisies, dandelions, hibiscus, honeysuckle, lavender, lilac, mums, nasturtium, pansies, roses, sunflowers and violets.That sounds like a lot, but some of them are related.  Botanically speaking, violas, pansies, and almost all violets are perennials belonging to the genus Viola. (See, I was paying attention in Science, Mom!) And the genus Viola contains as many as 600 species and grows in a lot of places in the Northern Hemisphere. 

So, can you eat violets! Both the leaves and flowers contain high amounts of vitamin C and vitamin A. The edible violet plant can be used to make syrups, brew teas, and in baked desserts. Flowers can even be added to salads and soups as garnish. What do they taste like? Well, they sure don’t taste like chicken! But they are kind of hard to describe. Some people say they taste  fruity or  woody, or like berries. Personally, I think they just taste like violets.

WARNING: There is one other important thing, though. If you’re going to make these cookies, just be sure you’re using the right kind of flowers, ones that are naturally grown and don’t have any kinds of weed killers or pesticides or any other kinds of nasty stuff on them. 

So here goes: 
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​Recipe

PART ONE:
The Flowers! (the day before you make the cookies)

You’ll need:
12 violets or pansies
1 egg white mixed with 2 T water
1 c. ultra-fine Granulated sugar​

This is really easy. Just brush the whole flower, both sides, with egg white, sprinkle with sugar, and let them sit overnight. The egg whites will dry and the flowers will be like candy when they’re done. Easy, peasy

PART TWO: 
The Cookies!

Here are the ingredients:
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2  cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
½ c butter
3/4 c. sugar
2 egg yolks (1 whole egg works, too)
1 t. vanilla extract
2 T. full fat sour cream

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These are called shortbread cookies  because they’re nice and buttery and tender. These aren’t the kind of cookie that snaps when you break it. It just kind of sighs. (smiley face). The butter and sour cream work together to make them that way.

Start by combining the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set it aside. Cream the butter, then add the sugar, and  beat until it’s creamy and light. Then add the eggs (you could use a whole egg, but you could also use the yolks left over after you separated the whites to use for the flowers), and beat it again. You’ll see, of course, the beautiful light combination butter, sugar, eggs, and air always make! Next, beat in the vanilla, then beat in the sour cream, mix well, and add the dry ingredients. 

You’ll see on the video that I don’t finish the dough in the mixer. Too much beating can make it tough, so when all the ingredients are in there and it’s all kind of crumbly, stop the mixer and start pushing it together and kneading it with your hands. It takes a little while for the flour to absorb all the wet ingredients, so be patient, but it will come together

Now, roll it out to about one centimeter, or about ⅓ of an inch. If you want to be precise, you can get little rubber ends for your rolling pin that keep it up off your rolling surface at exactly the perfect height so your dough is rolled out uniformly all the way across. Once it’s rolled, you’ll want to cut it out in rounds that are about double the diameter of your flowers.

Bake them on a sheet lined with parchment paper at 350 degrees for 9 to 12 minutes, turning the sheet around half way through. They should be golden brown on the bottom, but still pretty white on the top. Cool them while you make the icing.​

So far, it’s all been pretty easy. The flower thing was probably new, but not too hard. This next technique, the making of royal icing and icing the cookies, can be a bit tricky, so we’ll go a little slow. And don’t forget to watch the video for the visual part of the techniques. It really helps

You’re actually going to be making two icings, a thick one and a goopy one. It’s the same recipe, but one has more water in it than the other. The thick one is for outlining around the edges of the cookie, and the goopy one is used for something bakers call flooding, which means just kind of running it into the middle and letting it spread out on its own.

You’re also going to use meringue powder. Meringue powder takes the place of raw egg whites, which is found in traditional royal icing recipes. Egg whites create a very sturdy and stable icing that hardens quickly on top of cookies. Meringue powder, while containing eggs, eliminates the need for raw fresh eggs, but does the same thing, just easier. It’s a great ingredient to have around for something like this and takes some of the guesswork out of it. It’s kind of like a baker’s cheat, in a good way. 

Oh, and another ingredient warning: I used violet flavoring. Yes, there is such a thing. Flower flavors are fun to mess around with, but trust me, a little goes a long way. You don’t have to use violet flavor if you don’t want to. Vanilla or lemon or something else will do, but I thought it was fun to try something a little adventurous! If you do use violet, you might not want to start by adding it all at once. Try a few drops at a time until you get the flavor you want. Just be careful that whatever flavor you use doesn’t include oil. (Yes, it’s that old oil-and-water thing again).

So here we go:

​PART THREE:
Royal Icing:

2 lbs. powdered sugar
5 T. meringue powder
1 c + 3 T water
1-½ T light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. Violet flavoring​

Combine the meringue powder and all the wet ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer  and whisk by hand. 

NOTE: Your bowl and all utensils must be clean and grease free in order for the icing to whip properly. Remember, the powder is made of egg whites and grease will prevent them from beating up.

Now, put your bowl into the stand mixer and mix at medium speed for a few minutes. Now, add the sugar, half at a time, and beat until you achieve stiff peaks, just two or three minutes. If it seems too thin, just keep beating. It should thicken up. If it’s  too stiff to pipe a thin line, just thin it out by stirring in water, one teaspoon at a time until the desired consistency is reached. Now, you’re going to separate the two consistencies. In the video, I do this by putting each one in a squeeze bottle. You can do that, or just separate them into different piping bags. One will be your outlining icing, and that will take a Wilton #3 tip, which is just a small, round opening. The second will be your flooding icing. Add water to this one one teaspoon at a time until you achieve a consistency where the icing that drizzles off of your spoon and holds its shape briefly (the three second test from the video) before melting back into the rest of the icing in the bowl . This one will go in a bag with a bigger tip, like a #5 or a #6.

Now it’s time to decorate!

First, pipe a thin outline around each cookie with the thicker icing, fill in (flood) the middles with the thinner icing, then use a toothpick to push the flooding icing all the way to the border you’ve drawn.

Use the toothpick to fill in all the gaps, then give the iced cookie a little tap so the icing settles in flat. Now, before the icing dries completely, lay one of your Bee-you-tiful candied flowers in the middle of each one

It will take a few hours for the icing to dry completely, but before you stack or transport them, let them sit overnight.

​Now, you’ve done it!
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You have some amazing candy viola cookies that are every bit as precious as Violet Midwifery, in whose honor they’re made, you’ll have a story to tell, and an adventurous new flavor to try!