Rose Petal Saga

Hello,
I tried a new thing this week, making crystalized rose petals. Mine didn't turn out exactly right, but I used them anyway. My birthday was Thursday, and I decided to try out this new cake topper on my own cake. I'm glad I tried it out on me first! I bought a dozen beautiful pink roses at Fresh Market. They are really soft and velvety! Here they are, minus the two I plucked!


I plucked one of the roses and started peeling off the petals. After peeling a few and tearing them, I figured out that I should pop the entire top off of the stem first. Wow, that made a big difference. The petals just peeled away easily after that. So, I put the egg whites on each petal and sprinkled my pink cake sugar on top. I put them all on parchment paper, covered them with foil, and put them in the fridge.

I thought I had followed the directions, but I must not have done the egg whites quite right. Plus, the recipe calls for 'superfine' sugar, which I did not have. The super fine sugar must be the trick to the whole thing. The next day, I took the petals out of the fridge, but they were not crystalized. So, I stuck them in the freezer. WRONG idea. They got dark and wimpy! I put them on top of the cake anyway!
Oh well, they still looked kind of pretty. Since those didn't work, I plucked another rose and spread the petals out around the base of the cake. I thought that they looked pretty.
So, there is the saga of the crystalized rose petals! I am going to try this again, though. I might also do it with pansies, since pansies are also edible!!