Samorn Sanixay is a textile designer and weaver who, for 16 years, has been using natural dyes to colour her cloth. She uses food waste including the skin of vegetables to dye some of her textiles and chooses seasonal produce such as purple carrot, onion skins both red and brown, eggplant and passionfruit skin. She places them onto fabric and sprays vinegar to draw out the colour. The fabric is then rolled into a bundle and steamed for 20 minutes which produces some amazing colours.

Samorn says gardening and textiles have become intertwined for her. She runs a small weaving cooperative called Eastern Weft textiles and her products, including cushion covers, are sold in various boutiques but also via her online store www.easternweft.com

Earlier this year Samorn went to Copenhagen, invited by Copenhagen Seeds’ conservationist Signe Volten. The group had a “Dinner and Dye class” at The Farm of Ideas where local agricultural and food entrepreneurs are given space to grow and start new businesses. There were cheese makers, an organic flower farm and a kitchen garden of a former chef from NOMA restaurant.

Six years ago the family moved from Sydney to Canberra for work but Astrid has been involved with gardening her whole life. She first began volunteering, with her mother, at Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden programs when she was three months old, when her older sister started school. The family has always gathered and dried flowers. Some are used in salads and for decorations and the not-so-pretty are kept in a tin and used to dye Samorn’s textiles.

Astrid and Samorn are both keen cooks, as Samorn says, mostly out of necessity to feed the family healthy home cooked meals each night. In their home garden they grow many herbs, salad ingredients, berries and beans and Astrid helps with peeling and chopping up vegetables. She loves to fill her lunchbox with homegrown berries peas and cherry tomatoes when in season.

Astrid is a pupil at Majura Primary School where the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program has been operating with huge success for many years. It has been featured in this column in the past.

The Canberra Times photographer, Sitthixay Ditthavong, recognised Samorn as Laotian and the photoshoot was one of joy in the huge kitchen garden filled with edibles. The cornflower field and poppy patch is shoulder high.

In 2015 baker Jasmine Seah and Alvin Koh set up The Dessert Jar business (find their website online and on Facebook) and Astrid began supplying them with her home grown dried flowers to decorate their cakes.

For this Good Food annual, The Dessert Jar specially baked a tropical coconut and raspberry cake which, with permission from the Principal Mr Zobel, was taken to the Majura Primary School kitchen. It was dressed with fresh and dried flowers which grow in Astrid’s home garden and the school garden.

TROPICAL COCONUT AND RASPBERRY CAKE

350g plain flour

9g baking powder

half tsp salt

190g unsalted butter (softened)

415g caster sugar

6 eggs

400ml coconut cream

170g desiccated coconut

200g sour cream

200g fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 170C. Line two 6”x4” tins with greaseproof paper. Cream butter and sugar in a mixer for 3 mins til pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Combine coconut cream and sour cream in a bowl. Beat in dry ingredients and cream mixture, alternating between them. Start and end with dry ingredients. Fold in desiccated coconut. Gently fold in raspberries. Pour into tins and bake for 55 minutes until golden brown.

SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM

310g egg whites

510g caster sugar

700g softened unsalted butter

In a large glass bowl combine egg whites and sugar. Set bowl over a pot of simmering water with a candy thermometer and stir continuously until sugar is completely dissolved and thermometer reaches 70C. Remove bowl from water and, when cooled, whisk on high speed until meringue is thick, white, glossy and can hold stiff peaks. Add the butter, a tbsp at a time, beating well after each addition.

FILLING

2 tsp ground dried rose petals

3 tsp rosewater

swiss meringue buttercream

Cut both cakes in half (4 layers). Spread 250g buttercream using a palette knife. Repeat for all layers. Chill for 15 minutes. Add a coating to entire cake, chill 15 mins, then apply a smooth thick layer of buttercream. Decorate with edible flowers and assorted berries.