In Memory of Common Dandelions: Dandelion honey and Dandelion cookies

So, I ventured out to forage common dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) with a mission, “Saving native dandelions from invader dandelions!” I returned home with 50 or 60 common dandelions that were all small compared with vigorous native cousins. I researched the reason for the difference, and realized “invader” dandelions are struggling to survive in foreign soil … But, here I had a bucket-full of picked dandelion flowers. They were all cramped and closed. The beheaded flowers … I should be responsible enough to hold memorial service for them … Here is my recipe to extract “dandelion honey” and to bake “dandelion cookies.”

Come to think of it,
 dandelions close their flower when it’s not sunny.
 It was no wonder the flowers were all closed
 in my cooking bowl …

<Dandelion honey Naomi made>

• Maybe 60 or so dandelion flowers
• 300cc of H2O
• 1Tbsp of Lemon juice
• 100g of granulated sugar

1. Wash flowers well and put them in a pan with H2O and lemon juice. Stew them for about 15-20 minutes over weak heat until the liquid in the pan has dandelion yellow color.

Stewing flowers …

2. Let the pan cool naturally. Then, sieve the liquid into another pan, gentry squeezing the stewed flower to extract their honey. The squeezed flowers are for cookies. Please set them aside.

3. In the pan of dandelion flower extract, add sugar. Put the pan over weak heat for 30-40 minutes until small fluffy bubbles come out slowly. Turn off the fire. Don’t let the pan boil!

Dandelion flower extract + sugar in the pan

Bubbles

4. The content in the pan is “dandelion honey.” Please store it in a clean jar at room temperature. It can last long.

Here is my dandelion honey.
 I’ll savor them well, promise …

<Dandelion cookies>

• 200g of butter. If you use unsalted kind, add a pinch of salt for process #1 below.
• 90g of sugar
• 300g of all-purpose flour
• Squeezed dandelion flowers after extracted “honey.” Chop them into bits.

1. Cream butter with sugar using whisk. When the butter is smooth enough, add the chopped dandelions and mix well.

Butter, sugar and dandelion flowers

2. Sift flour in the bowl of dandelion butter. Mix well to combine. Make a log of the dough and cool it in a fridge.

The flowers are incorporated in the dough.

3. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Cut the cooled dough-log in 5mm thick coins. Place them on a baking sheet lined over 2 baking pans … er, mine is Japanese-sized oven so that you may be possible to bake them in just one pan.

4. Bake them for about 20 minutes.

My respect for common dandelions …

I haven’t counted how many cookies I baked … maybe 30 or 40? If you like, you can make cookies in 10cm diameter for smaller in numbers of pieces … It seemed trivial to count the treats I made from the plight I brought to common dandelions. When I picked them I found my hands became sticky, and smelled honey. That’s the natural scent of common dandelions … They try to survive in whatever form, by self-pollination or sprouting in sideways of concreted car road, away from their ancestral home, don’t they? It’s unfair to label them as “the worst invasive species of Japan,” now I think. They say Japanese annual average temperature would be more than 30°C by 2100. Can dwarfing common dandelions immigrated from cooler Europe survive in such condition? Who knows their 2100, 200 years after they came to this archipelago? Will they be treated as “aliens” still?

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420