They Called me the Wild Rose

I’ve been back collecting rose petals again. As I mentioned in my post about rose cordial, the roses in my favourite spot are probably rosa acicularis. These are quite a long flowering variety, and you don’t need that many for this recipe, so you can still find them now if you try. Don’t forget to leave the bees behind when you pick them, though.

This time I made a really delicately flavoured jelly. My version definitely has all the flavour of rose, but has quite a subtle colour. If you would like a darker coloured jelly, then you can boil the petals up in the water before you add the apples, but I personally don’t think it needs it.

I have never made rose petal jelly before, but once you have the proportions in your head, making jelly is easy. You will need a jelly bag, or muslin and a sieve to strain the liquid. I have a thick piece of muslin that I nail to the frame of a chair with the seat removed, and that works well for me. Whatever method you use, it needs to support a bit of weight.

This makes 3 standard pots of jam, but I actually used smaller jars, as it was a lovely one to give away as gifts. I was also thinking ahead to possible foodie penpals. When I sent my first parcel out, I found to my penpal’s cost that sending jars mean that I can send much less, due to weight limitations. A nice work around is to try to send small jars as testers. I will see if that works.

This jam is a good breakfast preserve, and nice with yoghurt. However, I actually think this has more potential as a glaze for patisserie. I am going to try making a raspberry tart, and use rose petal jam as the glaze, where you would probably ordinarily use apricot jam. Of course, I shall let you know the results when I try it.

Recipe: Rose Petal Jelly

Ingredients

15 g rose petals

500 g apples

400 ml water

Granulated sugar – the exact amount will depend on how much liquid you have

Method

Rinse the rose petals, and remove the claw.

Cut the apples into chunks. There is no need to peel or core them, as this contains pectin, which you need to help the jam set.

Place the apples, petals and water in a pan, and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer, and cook for half an hour. At the same time, boil your muslin to sterilise it.

Strain the fruit pulp through your muslin/jelly bag/ whatever set up you use into a large bowl. Leave  it to strain overnight, so you get the maximum amount of juice from your pulp. Don’t be tempted to squeeze the bag, or push the pulp through though, or your beautiful clear jelly will be cloudy.

I usually make fruit butter with the leftovers from jelly making. It is a tasty preserve, but it does have a short shelf life. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to make it or to find homes for the pots where it would not go to waste. As there has been no sugar added, you can still compost the pulp with no adverse effects.

Before you start to make the jelly, sterilise some jars. You can do this in various ways, including washing them in hot water, rinsing well, and putting them in a warm oven; you can steam them in a pressure cooker; or wash them in a dishwasher, being careful to time your cycle with about the right time that the jam is ready. At the same time, boil your muslin to sterilise it.

Measure your juice that was strained from the pulp. This is where the proportions come into play. For every 600 ml of juice that you have, you need 400 g sugar.

In your preserving pan, gently warm the juice and the sugar, stirring while the sugar dissolves. Then bring to a rapid rolling boil. Allow to boil like this for about 10 minutes. Your jelly will have reached setting point at 104.5 °C, or when you get a skin forming on jam dropped on a cold plate and left in the cold  for a minute.

Pour into the sterile jars while both are still hot. Fill to within 3 mm of the top, then put a wax disc over it, wax side down. Seal with a screw lid, or a cellophane cover.

Label them and give them a week for the flavour to develop. Once you have opened a jar, keep it in the fridge.