Today, there were enough roses in bloom that Melissa decided to begin harvesting petals. She makes an excellent rose petal jelly from them. It is wonderful stuff, which tastes very much like the roses smell.
Around here, Arctic Roses and Sitka Roses grow wild. They can reach 6’ tall and the stems can be almost 1/2” in diameter. The stems are completely covered by hairlike needles, which makes them much more difficult to deal with than domesticated roses.
Step one of the jelly-making process is harvesting the petals. Next, she simmers them into a tea to extract the tasty chemicals. After the simmering, the petals lose their color and join together into pastel lumps, which are strained out. The tea is mixed with pectin, flavorless citric acid, and a sweetener to make the jelly. We often use honey as the sweetener. Sometimes agave nectar is on sale and we use that. Sugar works, but is not as interesting. The main issue to consider is that the floral flavor is delicate and care must be taken to see that the other ingredients don’t mask it.
When eating it, I prefer it on toast with nothing else. It is good in a peanut butter sandwich, but the flavor doesn’t stand so well against the peanut butter.
