Making Pineapple Flowers

Flowers made with pineapple.


Martha Stewart was probably one of the first to blog about making pineapple flowers because her post on it dates back to 2003.

The first time I made pineapple flowers, a few months ago, it was a nightmare. According to the recipe, the flowers take about an hour to dry. I followed the instructions exactly but my flowers didn't dry after one hour, then another hour and another hour and it became an obsession everyday to dry the flowers in the oven after I had baked something, to take advantage of the remaining heat in the oven after it was switched off. After a week I felt like the dumbest person ever. The flowers turned darker and smaller but they were not only not dry, they became sticky and wet and limp. I tried drying the ugly sticky flowers under the sun instead. The flowers just remained sticky. And ugly.

I had used a Sarawak pineapple and a local variety pineapple, just to see which one made better flowers. The Sarawak pineapple is always sweet with hardly any sourness, gives an unusual crispy bite and has less juice than other pineapple varieties. I thought that the Sarawak pineapple would dry faster but it too became sticky and remained so after a week of drying.

It bothered me that other bloggers could make pineapple flowers after an hour of drying and I failed. Everyone who made them said it was simple so that didn't make me feel so good. One day it occurred to me that the stickiness in my flowers was due to the high amount of sugar so I should start with pineapples that have very little sugar or juice in them. And so it turned out that that was it! The greener the pin! eapples, the faster and better the flowers dry.



The key to making pineapple flowers turned out to be just that: the greener the pineapples, the faster and better the flowers dry. Start by cutting the skin of the pineapple off, then cut out the 'eyes' using the knife or a melon baller. Now slice crosswise very thinly and lay the pineapple slices on a baking tray lined with baking paper.



Put the pineapple slices into an oven heated at 110 C. After 15 minutes, mop the surface of the pineapple slices, then turn them over and mop again and continue drying. Repeat the mopping every 15 minutes. It will take longer than an hour, especially in humid tropical weather.


When the flowers feel dry but are still flexible, put them into small cupcake pans for another 20 minutes or more so that they dry into curved, realistic-looking flowers. Use the pineapple flowers to decorate your cakes!