Botanical Baking: Contemporary Baking and Cake Decorating with Edible Flowers and Herbs

Hello and welcome to Botanical Baking. thank you for choosing my book!

I’m Juliet and I’m a baker, cake maker and food stylist, among other things. I’ve been lucky enough to be immersed in the food world, specialising in baking and cake decoration for the last two decades. I’ve worked with all kinds of decorating techniques and recently the trend for working with edible flowers has really grown (pardon the pun!). For the past few years I’ve been working with them in my baking to create lots of lovely eye-catching designs.

I’m certainly not claiming to be an expert in edible flowers, but I do love using them to create really pretty cakes and bakes. I’m lucky enough to have a couple of fantastic growers who supply me with edible flowers, and I’ve been working with the fabulous Jan Billington (a brilliant organic flower farmer) for a few years and also the team at Nurtured in Norfolk. One day maybe I will try and grow my own... In the last few years some supermarkets have also been selling them in their salad selections, which is brilliant!

There are so many wonderful blooms to choose from, and I’ve been exploring lots of different ways to use them. In the past I’d have made intricate sugar versions of many flowers, but it is lovely to use real flowers. They really are stunning. Not even the most skilful sugarcraft artist can replicate the beauty of a fresh edible flower. And using fresh has the added bonus that nature has done all the work for us - no need to spend hours upon hours creating chocolate or sugar ones!

Juliet Sear is a baking expert, cook, food stylist, TV presenter and best selling author. She is the go-to expert for out of the ordinary food challenges and creative food projects. Recently, she worked on the edible animation TV trailer for the new Channel 4 Great British Bake Off series and a number of TV commercials. She is the author of The Cake Decorating Bible, Cakeology and Kawaii Cakes. She lives in London.