Wild Hibiscus Mini Cupcake

                                  Wild Hibisicus Mini Cupcake

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The roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa) is a species of Hibiscus native to the Old World tropics. In Australia we know the roselle plant as 'Rosella'. wikipedia

Rosella cordial and jam has been made in Australia since the colonial times, popular in Queensland where the Rosella plant flourishes. It's a bit cold where I am for a Rosella plant, but spurred on by successful plantings on the gardening forums I'm going give it a try and plant this spring. It can be grown as a perennial or annual, so I'll be trying to grow this small shrub as an annual.

 image wikipedia commons

Love, love, love the raspberry/plummy flavour of Rosella jam and can't wait to make a batch myself, but in the interim I have a jar from the supermarket and syrupy wild hibiscus flowers that I used to top today's cupcake.

wild hibiscus flowers in syrup and rosella jam

You may have seen these wild hibiscus flowers in a champagne cocktail, though they are equally at home paired with brie as part of a cheese platter or topping a pavlova. Fabulous stuffed with sweet or savory fillings, or try dipping the bases in white chocolate to serve with after dinner coffee.

I used flowers straight from the jar to top today's mini cupcakes; the rosella flowers are sweet, soft and fleshy with notes of raspberry/plum and rhubarb. 

For chocolate flowers pat the flowers dry with paper towel before dipping the bases in tempered chocolate. The chocolates can be make ahead of time, with the flowers taking on more of a fruit leather texture as they dry.

rosella jam; I'll be using this in upcoming weeks

the petals open and take on an opaque quality as light streams though the glass

I used soda water in a wine glass for the photo today, to illustrate the bubbles opening the petals of the flower. If you are planning to use wild hibiscus flowers in champagne flutes at a wedding, first test that the flowers open in the glasses you have chosen. You need a champagne flute that isn't too narrow at the bottom to allow room for flowers to open.

Have fun trying them, happy baking :)

For cocktail recipes and more visit the official Wild Hibiscus website here

You can find jars of the flowers in varying sizes in Australia from the bushtucker shop in Europe from Wild Hibiscus shop Deutschland. Plus good kitchen supply and bar supply stores.

And of course they are available from Amazon too.

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Fruit Chews part two

Twice the size of the actual cupcake, a close up view of a Starburst fruit chew rose on "Spring burst cupcake"

Two months ago I posted a blog entry on how to  colour and shape Starburst Fruit Chews, today is in answer to queries about what else can you make with the softened fruit chews;

           Starburst fruit chews

Roses

You don't need any special cutters or ingredients, just fruit chews & a microwave oven. Great for beginners to try their hand at flower making and for the more experienced a pack of fruit chews in the pantry will serve you well in the emergency "I've run out of modelling paste" moment, also great for when you need a particular flavour for your flowers.

Take your softened fruit chew & roll a small piece to form the centre of your rose.

                        

Roll other small pieces and wrap around your centre piece one at a time, pinching the bottom of the rose to join as you are forming until you have a fully formed flower. Trim any excess fruit chew from the bottom of the rose with scissors. I used a centre & four petals to make the pink rose (uncoloured strawberry Starburst) on top of today's cake. 

Ejector cutter blossoms                                             

All your ejector cutters will work with the softened fruit chews; here I used a tiny blossom ejector cutter to cut blossoms from rolled out fruit chews & then ejected them into foam to produce a shaped flower. 

Cherry Starburst rose and coloured strawberry Starburst blossoms

Each Starburst fruit chew produces one rose plus 24 blossoms. Do keep in mind the flavour of your cupcakes, cherry Starbursts are great with Chocolate cake... not as great with peppermint cake!

Have Fun!!

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 Fruit Chews part one