Category: flowers

No, no–I’d never heard of such a thing either. But the idea intrigued me.

A sweet, delicate jelly with the essence of…roses. It sounded so like something the ladies would eat on teeny, tiny toast corners in Pride and Prejudice that, well, I couldn’t help myself. Absolutely had to try it.

Here’s how it works:

Ingredients

4 cups rose petals

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 pkg. pectin

4 cups white sugar

Stroll right out to the yard and carefully pluck about 4 cups of rose petals from the poor, unsuspecting bushes. Trust me, they’ll get over it.

Rinse them off, you know, just to make sure that petals are the only thing in the basket–if you get my drift.

Boil the petals in 4 cups of hot water—your house will smell incredible! Strain out the petals reserving all the liquid. Isn’t it amazing how ugly and colorless the sad little petals are now?

Add enough water to make four cups of juice again. It’s an interesting cider color…but just wait.

Next add 1/4 cup lemon just and watch what happens. The juice turns a lovely shade of pink–much prettier than it looks here.  Amazing!

Stir in 1 package of pectin till perfectly blended.

Now then, cook over medium heat until it does that rolling boil thing. Now add 4 cups of white sugar stirring till dissolved and bring it all back to a rolling boil again. Watch it carefully because it needs to boil for about 15 minutes to reach it’s setting point–but it can bubble over real easily. We know this, so if you don’t want to spend the afternoon scrubbing jelly out from under the stove burner—stay near by.

With a small strainer, remove the foam from the top.

Pour into tiny, little hot, clean jars and seal.

Scurry off now, and make some crumpets. Elizabeth Bennet will be stopping by.

{ hee hee }