Can you really eat dandelions?
Over the last couple of weeks, the dandelions have exploded into flower around where we live – they are everywhere! The entire plant is edible (remember Dandelion and Burdock Beer?), but I think gathering the flowers is the most fun. All kids love picking Dandelion Flowers, and in my mind, it counts as weeding – what’s not to like!
There’s a whole host of recipes that use the dandelion flowers; teas, wines, salads and savouries. The plant is one of our most nutritious weeds here in the UK. Dandelions contain anti-oxidant vitamins, minerals, calcium, as well as protein, and would have been a food staple for our ancestors here in Europe.
Why not try our beautifully simple Dandelion and Lemon biscuits for a sunny introduction to this delightful edible weed!
What you need to make Dandelion and Lemon Biscuits
- Approx. 20 Dandelion flower heads
- 125g softened butter
- 100g caster sugar
- One egg
- Zest of 1 lemon, plus 1 tbsp of its juice
- 180g plain flour
- 20g cornflour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
Prepare the Dandelion flowers: Wash, then remove the yellow petals by pinching firmly and pulling (a little green is ok but too much may impart a bitter taste).
Cream the sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the egg and lemon zest.
Sift in the dry ingredients and combine well. Add in the lemon juice and Dandelion petals and mix.
Dollop spoonfuls onto a baking tray and cook for approximately 12 mins at 180C/350F/gas four until golden.
Cool the dandelion biscuits on a wire rack and enjoy with a cup of tea!
Try different combinations of flavours with this biscuit. How about Marigold Petals and Orange, Lavender or Rose Petal?
For more fun wild food recipes to try with children, why not check out some of our other foraging posts. You can find some of our favourites below.
Stinging Nettle, Apple and Pear Fruit Leather.
Our original recipe for nettle fruit leather. The nettles pair perfectly with the apple and pear, and the kids love this healthy snack.
How to Make Raw Rosehip Syrup. Easy No-cook Recipe.
Raw rosehip syrup is a no-cook rosehip syrup recipe that uses sugar to draw the juice from the fruit resulting in a thick, delicious syrup.
How To Make Sourdough Starter From Wild, Natural Yeast
I show you how to collect and use wild, natural yeast to make an easy Sourdough starter for baking your own delicious and healthy Levain bread.
How to Make Wonderful Meadowsweet Cordial
Here we share our wonderful Meadowsweet Cordial recipe. Meadowsweet is a beautiful herb, with a delicate fragrance and is the original source of Aspirin.
How to Make Delicious, Healthy Stinging Nettle Crisps
Homemade vegetable crisps are a brilliant alternative to shop-bought snacks. They are cheap, easy to make, and super good for you. This nettle crisp recipe can be easily adapted to use with other wild and homegrown greens. Wild garlic chips, in particular, make a tasty snack.
88 comments
I love your recipes especially for the rosehip syrup and liqueur. I have read about foraging, but have done very little of it. I really am interested in anything English. I would love to visit your country some time. Thank you for sharing these wonderful ideas on line.
Thank you for your kind comment Vicki and hope you make it over here soon :)
can’t wait to make them!
Take dandalion blosom put in a beer batter
And deep fry. Yum
That does sound yummy, thanks Mr Ed :)
Could you please tell me if dandelion flowers could be dried and used later when there are none about as it would be great if they could be something different for guests staying with us here in the North Yorkshire countryside . And in Spring we can encourage them to pick their own and take some home for later
What a lovely idea Anna, the certainly can be dried and used in all sorts of ways :)
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Can you convert this into cups and teaspoons. I am uncetain about the grams thing. I live in the USA.♀️
Hi Maria. 125g Butter = 1/2cup, 100g Caster Sugar = 1/2cup 180g flour = 1 1/2cups plus 1/8 cup cornflour (I have changed the ratio very slightly for the conversion to simplify it so the cup version has slightly less cornflour and slightly more plain (all purpose) flour). Hope that helps and let me know how you get on :)
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I could only find 5 dandelions in our garden today(only place I know they haven’t been sprayed or pooed on)so I supplemented with some lemon balm leaves and reduced the lemon zest. Was a bit woried as I dolloped them out as they had consistency of very think mashed potato and I couldn’t shape them at all but they turned out great.
Great idea using the lemon balm, and I saw your photo on Instagram and they looked fab :) Thanks for taking the time to come back and let us know you tried them, it’s really lovely to hear :)
I was hoping to get to the dandelions before Bruce sprayed them! ARG! I will have to wait for the next crop and tell him to save me at least 20 before he decides to kill them off! Thanks for sharing this, what a fun idea!
My Bruce isn’t meant to spray anything in our garden Nikki, but there’s definitely some weed dying going on in places so I think he has – must be something in the name lol
I wonder if I can convince my daughter to make us some of these Sarah. I’d really love to try them. I can’t imagine what dandelion must taste like
Do let me know if you try them Michelle, or you could substitute one of your other native edible flowers :)
How interesting! I have never tried baking with dandelions before but now I am definitely intrigued. We have plenty to harvest!
It’s such fun cooking with wild foods Carlee, and as you say they’re pretty easy to spot :)
Hello, great post!
I have the flowers already, and I’m going to try do them, in this moment.
But I have a doubt. What kind of corn flour do you used? Is it normal corn flour, precooked corn flour, or corn starch?
Hi Beatriz Just normal cornflour, if you do not have it you can just use 20g more of the plain flour – hope you enjoy them x
Hi Sarah, dandelion and burdock is a blast from the past. It wasn’t something I enjoyed, but I had a friend who loved the stuff. Your dandelion and lemon biscuits looks so pretty. I have never cooked using flower (or weed) petals, maybe one day I’ll have to give it a try.
xx
My hubby loves it too Debbie, maybe I’ll try and make it sometime. The biscuits were fun to make :)
They look delish & I love the way you have them displayed in the picture! What is “caster sugar”? I’ve always know dandelions were edible, but have never eaten them. We fight them in the yard all the time, so maybe we can scrounge up 20 flowers!
Thank you Florence. I think you call Caster Sugar Superfine sugar in the US, it’s the finer one that you’d use for baking rather than granulated which we’d put into tea and coffee. We call powered sugar icing sugar here too :)
How interesting! I have never thought of eating a dandelion, or really any other plant in my yard for that matter. Would like to try some edible plants picked from the yard sometime. I have made tea from Mexican marigold before though.
I had never heard of mexican marigold before Linda, but have just found some seeds on ebay and ordered them. There are so many wild edibles out there, it’s great fun learning about them and trying them out :)
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These look and sound delicious :) I hadn’t ever thought of eating them. I may well have to get picking and make some of these :)x
The kids loved making these Lindsey, and its such an easy to identify plant to forage :)
Wow, these look so cool. I haven’t ever cooked with dandelions before. I’m intrigued, What do they taste like? Thanks so much for linking up with #MinisMeals xx
The leaves have quite a bitter taste, the flowers are less so and have a herby taste – I haven’t tried the roots yet. Thanks for having us :)
Wow, these look delightful and such an unusual recipe. I’ve never cooked with dandelion before.
Thanks Nicola – let me know if you try them :)
Ooohhh very interesting biscuits! What a fab idea, I can see why these would go down a treat with the little ones. #familyfun
It’s such a fun thing to make with them – I have never met a kid who didn’t love picking Dandelions :)
These look delicious! I love the idea of using dandelions to cook with. (I used to make nettle pop with my grandma as a child and she often uses flowers in salads etc too). Dandelion and burdock was always a favourite of mine so I’m sure that these biscuits would be a winner for me! Thanks for linking with #passthesauce x
Thanks for having us. We’re planning to try Nettle Cordial soon – apparently it tastes great :)
These look and sound amazing, I would never have thought of cooking with dandelions before. TY for sharing this recipe with us at #FamilyFun
Thanks for having us Catie – it’s a really fun recipe for kids :)
I am so sad that dandelions are weeds – I do so love them. They are cheery little splashes of colour. I love the idea of making them into biscuits – I’d never thought of that before and they are in abundance. Thanks for this amazing recipe…definitely going to give it a go! Sounds amazing…I love the seal pups – too cute for words. Did I see tall ships in the harbour? #FamilyFun
P.S I’ve ‘Stumbled’ this recipe. x
They are lovely to see aren’t they, and probably the first flower we all learned to identify. You did see a tall ship – we had a lovely trip out on a replica Tudor boat – it was amazing :)
This is amazing! I would never have thought of using dandelions in biscuits but have used lavender loads, this has really inspired me and I’m going to go hunting for some dandelion heads tomorrow now. Thank you! #howtosundays
Keep meaning to try Lavender in cooking. Enjoy making the biscuits :)
[…] I also enjoyed Craft Invaders Dandelion and Lemon biscuits. Not a lemon fan myself, but I really like the idea of adding the dandelion to the biscuits, […]
Thanks for featuring us on How to Sundays – we love linking up x
These are AMAZING! I love the idea of incorporating foraging finds into bakes, that will be great fun for kids to help pick and mix as well. Not a huge fan of lemon, but would definitely be tempted to try them. Thanks so much for linking up to #HowtoSunday :) x
The kids love it, and its the perfect place to start as everyone can find and identify a dandelion :)
What a great recipe Sarah. I’ve never tried working with dandelions, I normally pull them up and throw them away hoping they don’t grow back too quickly. My father in law used to tell a story about his father who used to make potions with dandelions. I really didn’t appreciate there were so many healthy elements to them. Pining, certainly will try this. #howtoSundays,
Angela x
You can make all sorts of things with them, and apparently you can just cool the roots like carrots too (we haven’t tried them yet though, so no idea how nice they are) :)
I’ve never used flowers in my cooking, but we have a ton of dandelions in the garden so might need to give this one a go! #HowtoSunday
It makes you look at them much more fondly I find, once you know you can eat them :)
I had no idea dandelions were edible! We’ve certainly got plenty of them down at the allotment and the kids will love picking them to bake with – which will also keep the weeds down! #HowtoSunday
Isn’t it great that you can eat them – I look at them far more fondly now – I’ve seen recipes for wine and jelly (the jam type) on pinterest – will have to see what else I can turn up!
Wow I really didnt know dandelion flowers were edible. I knew the greens were but this is a really interesting post. I look forward to trying it out!
There’s lots of things you can do with them apparently – and I believe they used to be grown as a vegetable :)
These sound great. I have read many benefits of dandelion it’s supposed to be very good for you. I think I’ll have to give these a try. Sarah #HowToSunday
I’ve read that too, and they are the perfect wild plant to try as they are so easy to identify :)
Maybe it’s just me but I never thought that dandelion could be eaten. Wow, I’m really surprised. I’ll ask my wife to find dandelions and make these for me and my wife.
They are meant to be very nutritious – I believe the french still grow them as a vegetable – let me know what you think if you make them :)
What a fab idea! my girls love collecting dandelion heads, now I know what to do with them all!! Thankyou so much for sharing this with me on #kidsinthekitchen it’s great to have you joining in!!
Thanks for having us! Like you, I am passionate about kids learning to cook. This is a really fun recipe for them, and I think its really good for kids to learn about foraging for food – its amazing how many wild plants are edible!
I love anything lemony so will be giving these a go with Monkey, I can imagine he would love picking the dandelions to cook – have pinned for future reference – thank you :) #kidsinthekitchen
Mt kids loved making them :)
I would never have thought of using dandelions, I bet they make for interesting biscuits!
They look really pretty. Plan to try some other edible flowers soon! Thanks for visiting x
Never in my wildest dreams did I think you could use dandelions in cooking the biscuits look and sound yummy great post
Thanks for visiting and taking the time to comment x
I’d never have thought of using dandelions in baking. What a fab idea! I’m trying to imagine what they would taste like now…
I’ve seen recipes to make Jelly and cordial from them too, that look nice. Thanks for visiting x
Oh wow I would never think of baking with dandelion!! I remember drinking dandelion & burdock as a kid though. Ooh I really want to know what it tastes like now!! :) #MyFavouritePost
Oh Dandelion and Burdock would be a good make, might try that next! Thanks for visiting x
I’ve never thought to use dandelions, my son loves to pick them and these look delicious, they are in my to make list #picknmix xx
They are lots of fun to make with the kids, thanks for visiting x
Wow I never would have thought of trying this, but they actually sound scrummy! Thanks for linking up to #PicknMix!
Stevie x
Thanks for having us x
I’ve never eaten a dandelion! Am I in the minority? I need to remedy that. The girls have been asking to bake something so this would be super fun. :) I hope you can stop by the blog on Monday and share a post–I have a link party that runs Monday through Friday!
It’s surprising how many wild are edible. I would love to link up Monday – will see you then x
Wow. What a recipe. I am going to try it with my kids this summer. They love the outdoors and collecting things so collecting flowers first is perfect. Thank you. #picknmix
Thanks for visiting :) I just sneaked a peek at your site, what an oasis of calm it appears – I have total blog envy!
wow,all this time I’ve been saying thankyou to my daughter for picking dandelions and handing them to me whilst throwing them over my shoulder when I could have been doing delicious biscuits with them!!!!Fab idea x #picknmix
The kids love making these, and it gives me great pleasure out on walks when they start pointing out which plants are edible. Thanks for visiting x
your recipe doesn’t say how much dandelion petals to use….so, once the flowers are washed and the petals removed, what is that volume, please.
We used 20 heads, which I would say was roughly a cup once prepared. With this amount the texture of the petals definitely comes through.
I must have missed it, but I don’t see dandelions on the ingredient list! How many?
Very well spotted (red face). We used 20 heads for these biscuits.
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