Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Edible Flowers guide to Sunflowers along with all the Sunflowers containing recipes presented on this site, with 180 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Sunflowers as a major edible flower.

The Sunflower, Helianthus annuus, is an annual flowering plant in the Asteraceae (Aster/Daisy) family. It is an annual plant, native to Central America growing to between 1.5m and 3.5m tall. If was brought to Europe in the 16th century and is valued for its large inflorescence. As a result it is a common garden plant. The 'flower' is actually a composite flower composed of numerous florets crowded together and joined to a single stem. The outer petal-bearing florets are the sterile ray florets and can be yellow, red, orange, or other colours. The florets inside the circular head are called disc florets, which mature into seeds.

Sunflowers grow best in full sun and perform best in fertile, moist, well-drained soil with heavy mulch. For commercial planting seeds are typically spaced about 45cm apart and are sown 2.5cm deep. Commercially, sunflowers are grown for their seeds, which are sold both as a food and also processed to make sunflower oil. The leaves can also be used as animal fodder.

Like many members of the aster family, the petals of sunflowers are edible and can be used in any recipe that calls for dandelion petals or daisy petals.