And what is this? A genuine post from Germanz, that’s what. On a genuine German keyboard, too, which is tripping me up every time I try to punctuate anything or use a Y or a Z. This may need to be a post without either of those letters…
I will, of course, post extensively (almost certainly far too extensively) about my travels when I get home, but suffice it to say that it has all been wonderful so far, and I have neither fallen into a glacier, nor been eaten by a wolf, nor even shipwrecked by the Lorelei. And yes, I had opportunities to do all of these things. I didn’t even break my leg in Darwin, which seemed like a near-certainty, and while Paris was full of tourists, the actual French people I met there were all extremely nice and helpful.
In fact, here I am, in a boat on the Rhine river, not being drowned by the Lorelei. Though I do admit to singing the Lorelei song often enough that my fellow passengers may have wanted to drown me instead… (I was singing under my breath. Mostly.)
So much for the stereotypes. Now let’s get on with the sugar!
You may be asking yourself why I am making rose-scented sugar. It’s a fair question. You see, as we were eating dinner last night, the rose sitting in a vase on the table abruptly dropped half its petals into a bowl. And the petals smelled so amazing – these are real, old roses from the garden of Anna’s mother and their scent is rich and heady and intoxicating – that I had to think of something to do with them. So I decided to see if I could make a perfumed sugar.
It turns out that I can. It’s hardly a recipe, but it really is a lovely thing to sprinkle on raspberries, or on a plain cake, or even on rye bread – so it’s definitely worth recording here.
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Petals from the last rose of summer (left blooming alone, or not, as the case may be). Make sure it is a rose that actually smells of something, though.
Caster sugar. Nope, I can’t tell you how much. Enough to cover it.
Now what will you do with it?
Put the petals in a bowl, unless they fell there of their own accord.
Cover with sugar.
Massage the petals and sugar together well with your fingers for several minutes, to help release the rose oil into the sugar. The sugar will go slightly pink and the rose petals will break up. Also, your fingers will smell of roses, which is a definite bonus.
Cover and leave overnight, or for a few days, before eating.
Enjoy. I suspect that you might want to seive out the roses after a few days, though the sugar may well preserve them.
Variations
I suspect this method would work with violets or lavender. And yes, this recipe is vegan, nut-free, gluten-free, low fructose and not even a little bit low GI. But you knew that already…
I totally love this on rye bread, but I think it would be particularly fantastic on the sort of little sugar biscuits that you roll in sugar as they come out of the oven.
Alternatively, this sugar would be lovely as a topping for raspberry muffins – raspberries and roses go supremely well together.
And it’s so much nicer than letting those last petals fall and disappear into autumn. Let them stay with you for just a little longer.
So I got these tomatilloes at the market, and a whole big box of peppers and chillis and then I had this black chocolate and I had pumpkin seed meal, and all of this pretty much said ‘Mexican’ to me, but there’s a problem – I really don’t know thing one about Mexican cooking. I’m sort of aware of flavours that go together, but not how to make them do so, or anything like that.
