Roses, roses and more roses :-)

[Toddy]

Rose water made from these dark and beautifully scented old roses is a perennial delight; I use it all year round, and it lasts well too. I have, as an experiment, a jar of it in the fridge that is now four years old, and it's still perfect

Rose Water Recipe

Gather richly perfumed roses and strip the petals from them, it's worth doing it carefully and making sure there are no beasties in the flower heads.

Pack into a jar and cover in boiling water. I screw the lid on and let the whole thing take it's time to cool down. Kept like this the petals slowly soften and become soft and almost jelly like. They can be used to make rose beads later on.
If your scented roses are dark like mine, then the straight rose water will mark light coloured clothing, it does wash out, but it's messy. Strained and diluted down though and it makes a wonderfully refreshing 'mist' from a spray bottle. Used straight on cotton wool it's a very refreshing facial wipe and is very pleasant used on a flannel in this hot weather on any areas where sweat is making things uncomfortable. It's generally considered safe for very young children too.

It's one of the traditional gifts children made for mums, aunts and grannies

Rose Petal Jelly-Jam Recipe

If you'd rather eat than wear......

Pick and loosely pack the petals into a measuring jug of some kind or other. Basically you will need the same measurement of water and the appropriate match of sugar, and the juice of one lemon for up to 500ml of water.
So, if you manage one litre of petals you'll need this recipe,

1 litre of rose petals
1 litre of water
1 kilo of sugar
Juice of 2 lemons

The lemons add a little tang, but they're really there for their acid which turns the jam into a beautiful pink colour too
You can use limes, tbh, I prefer one of each in my mixture.

Put the petals into a big pot and cover with water. Bring up to the boil and keep them hot simmering for 15 minutes. All of the beautiful colour will have gone to a dirty brown looking liquid but, then comes the magic Let the pot cool down and then strain through a fine sieve. If you want perfect clarity strain again through paper towels or a jelly bag, but the slightly cloudy jelly-jam is lovely anyway.

Add the juice from the lemons and stir and the wonderful rose pink colour is restored
Stir in the sugar and bring slowly to the boil. It needs to boil for about ten minutes to reach setting point. I do skim, and again the skimmings are edible and a treat, but it's not really necessary; they'll mostly usually end up at the top of the jar anyway.

Pour into clean warmed jars and seal.

It's like potting up Summer

atb,
Mary

 

[Goatboy]

I'm enjoying these Mary, nice to see.

Turbogirl had a recipe for rhubarb and dark rose petal jam up the other day, sounded great - have given it to a friend who's trying it out this week I think. Waiting for a tasting.

Link post 20.

 

[sandbender]

Thanks Toddy I enjoyed those, a surprisingly useful plant the rose.

 

[Toddy]

I thought we could use this thread and put in the rose hip syrup later on too
I've got a half written tutorial on the rose beads to tidy up as well.

M

 

[John Fenna]

I like Rose petal sandwiches - but do not use a bread with too much of its own flavour

 

[British Red]

Great one Mary - I use rose water to make traditional Turkish Delight - its surprisingly simple (but sadly not suitable for vegetarians)

 

[Toddy]

Ah, but if you make the boiled fondant one it's still very good. Locust bean gum works too, as do the seaweed gels.

I like the rose and lemon ones

M

 

[British Red]

Mmmm seaweed....has to smell better than gelatine!