trying something new

I've read quite a few "recipes" on how to sugar violets. It is sort of cool, you can take a flower you grew (that is edible), paint it with egg white, coat it in sugar and let them dry - and all this (I think) is supposed to preserve them. From pictures I've seen they retain their shape, are relatively the same color they started out as (unless the are really old or faded by sunlight) and look just lovely. So after consulting a few cookbooks and other online recipes I decided to try it out.

I didn't have superfine sugar, so I decided to go ahead with the regular grains of sugar. It seemed like it was all working out just fine in the beginning. Unfortunately, I might have chosen to do this on one of the most humid days yet this summer, so as you might imagine, the drying out process didn't go so well. Within 24 hours, instead of having lovely little crystaled jems, I ended up with soggy, wimpy, gooey piles. So moral of the story... next time I'll try: brushing on a thinner layer of egg white, actually using superfine sugar, hanging the flowers by the stem, and most of all - doing this in a dry heat situation.