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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