Rose delight

Finding pesticide free flowers is hard and, quite frankly, I don’t see why bother. Unless, of course, you want to eat them! For this recipe you’ll need to buy a big bunch of roses (which makes me instantly happy) and make sure they are organic, pesticide free and so on. The dream of my life would be having such a lush rose garden that I could make this every year with my own produce, but nothing is perfect.

20 roses

2 cups of pectinated sugar

1 and ½  cups of water

juice of 2 limes

1 tablespoon of honey

red food colouring if you wish (I don’t use it)

Get all the petals away from the roses, wash them and dry them thoroughly. Keep half the rose petals and put the rest through the food processor with the lime juice and the honey to blitz until it becomes a gorgeously crimson puree.

Melt the sugar in the water on medium heat. Add all the roses and bring to a volcanic boil for about 3 minutes.

Let it cool and ladle into sterilised jars before sealing them.

You can choose any colour rose you like. Tradition says red, but I almost prefer those yellowy-pink roses that smell of lemons and sugar and overall heaven. Or you could mix them up, adding red petals to a yellow or pink rose base for a glorious effect. Either way, up to you.

Rose jam is delicious on toast and quite the stunner to bring out for breakfast when you have guests. I like to buy really good quality sponge (or make my own, but that takes time), cut it horizontally and spread a very generous layer of this confection in between. Add a simple royal icing on top and cut into slices for the perfect teatime treat for when you have people over.

It is also a very good present, especially for ladies and girls.